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THE 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



IN 



ITS IDEA, ATTRIBUTES 



MINISTRY: 



WITH A PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO 

THE CONTROVERSY ON THE SUBJECT BETWEEN ROMANISTS 
AND PROTESTANTS. 



EDWARD ARTHUR LITTON, M. A 

PERPETUAL CURATE OF STOCKTON HEATH, CHESHIRE, 
AND LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD. 



<£becontr American SSTrftton: 

REVISED BY THE AUTHOR. 



PUBLISHED BY A LAY MEMBER OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
SMITH & ENGLISH, 36 NORTH SIXTH ST. 
NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH, 683 BROADWAY. 
1859. 






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AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



It having been thought desirable to reprint the following work 
in America, the Author has availed himself of the opportunity 
of introducing some alterations and corrections which he trusts 
will render it more generally useful. Such a revision, however, 
as he could have wished to bestow upon it, was out of the ques- 
tion, partly, from want of leisure at the present moment, and 
partly, because more than half of the work was in type before the 
intention of re-issuing it was communicated to him. He is sensi- 
ble, therefore, that even now, the work labors under many imper- 
fections, particularly a want of compression in some parts, and a 
crudeness of statement in others, which, had more time been at 
his command, he might have hoped to remove, and as it is, he 
commends it to the candor of the Christian public. 

The principal alteration, has been the omission of some obser- 
vations, in the chapter on the sacraments, on infant baptism, or 
rather on the amount of direct Scripture evidence for the exist- 
ence of pcedo-baptism in the first age of the Church ; and of some 
others, on the place which circumcision held in the ancieni 
economy, and its consequent relations to baptism under the new. 
On the latter point, the Author's opinions have undergone a 
change, and as regards the former, if he still thinks that certain 
passages have been unduly pressed to deliver a testimony in 
favor, not of the lawfulness, but, of the Apostolic institution, of 
infant baptism, he is sincerely desirous of avoiding discussions 
likely to lead to controversy among those who, in the main, agree 
with the principles set forth in the work. The conclusions there- 
fore to be drawr: from the normal case of Scripture, viz : adult 
baptism, are simply stated; and it is left to the reader, if lie be a 

iii 



IV PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 

poedo -baptist, to adjust them to the normal practice of his church. 
That they can be satisfactorily adjusted to this exceptional case is 
the Author's full conviction; but to state the argument fully 
would, require some space, and an imperfect statement might lead 
to misapprehension. 

If on the important subject discussed the work should be found 
in any instance to have promoted sound Scriptural and Protestant 
views, the Author's object in sending it forth will have been fully 
attained. 

Oxford, March 14, 1856. 



8. Douglas Wyeth, Agt., Stereotype!, 
No. 7 Pear St., Phila. 



PREFACE. 



Though it is presumed that the reader will meet with nothing 
in the following pages but what the title prepares him for, it is 
very probable that he will look for several topics which, in works 
of this kind, are commonly discussed, but in the present are 
omitted. It may be proper, therefore, to state briefly the nature 
and scope of the work. 

The course of the great controversy which has been so long 
agitating the Church of England must have impressed the atten- 
tive observer with the importance of a scientific acquaintance, 
especially on the part of the clergy, with the fundamental differ- 
ences between Eomanism and Protestantism, as opposite systems 
of dogmatic theology. This branch of study, so proper to a 
Protestant Church, had, for various reasons, fallen into neglect, 
until circumstances, which have become matter of history, forced 
it upon public attention. Among these reasons may be mentioned 
the historical, rather than doctrinal, character of our theology — 
the absence, hitherto at least, in this country of a learned, if not 
of an agressive, Eomanism, such as exists abroad, and there calls 
forth a corresponding activity on the part of Protestant theolo- 
gians — and, not least, the indifference, not to say positive aver- 
sion, which, since the time of Laud, has been exhibited towards 
evangelical Protestantism, the real antagonist of Eomanism, by a 
large and influential section of the English clergy. 

The consequences of this neglect have been such as might have 
been expected. In its earlier stages the tractarian movement 
appeared to have gained a complete triumph on the ground of 
historical and philosophical disquisition. Men were taken by sur- 
prise, and arguments appeared convincing simply because they 
were not familiar to the minds of those to whom they were 
addressed. Our younger clergy especially, unversed in the study 
of the Eomish controversy, were seduced in numbers by the 
attractive, and to them novel, guise in which the reasonings of 



VI PREFACE. 

Bellarmin and Bossuet were re-produced, and imbibed Komish 
principles without suspecting the source whence the poison was 
derived. • 

That this state of things should continue is neither creditable 
nor safe. The nation, indeed, has uttered its judgment on the mo- 
mentous questions at issue with a voice which cannot be mistaken ; 
but, in times like ours, we need something more than the protest 
of a healthy Christian instinct, such as the laity of this country 
have given expression to, against the errors of the church system. 
The adherents of the Reformation, if they would maintain their 
ground amidst the various opposing influences which surround 
them, must be prepared, not only to contend zealously for the 
apostolic faith, but to justify, both to themselves and to others, 
their adherence thereto. If Protestantism show itself incapable 
of wielding any other weapons than those of popular declamation, 
it is to be feared that, in an inquiring age like our own, when 
every system is undergoing a process of sifting, it will be com- 
pelled to abandon the field to its antagonists, whether Eomish or 
rationalistic. In short, an intelligent and scientific study of the 
doctrinal differences between ourselves and Rome appears to be at 
the present time peculiarly needful ; and if upon any section of 
our Church this duty seems to be more incumbent than upon 
others, it is that to which the epithet of evangelical has, whether 
rightly or wrongly, been attached, and which, as recent events 
have abundantly shown, is the natural antagonist of Rome. 

It may be thought that, the immediate danger which menaced 
the Church of England having passed away, a discussion of this 
kind is no longer opportune ; but, independently of the subject's 
being one of permanent and universal interest, it would be a great 
mistake to suppose that, because the leaders of the movement have 
passed over to a more congenial territory, the principles which 
they inculcated with such zeal and success within our own pale 
have disappeared with them. Those principles, by whatever name 
they may be called, whether Catholic, or Church, or Sacramental, 
are still rife amongst us, and in active operation: in truth, the 
contest between evangelical and ecclesiastical Christianity is as old 
as the Gospel itself, and may be expected to continue to the end 
of time. Moreover, it is impossible to overlook the significance 
of the recent attitude which the Church of Rome has assumed 
within these dominions. Politically she has experienced a signal 
repulse; but there is every reason to expect that a systematic 
assault will be made by theologians of her communion, of a higher 



PREFACE. Vii 

grade than the controversialists best known in this country, on 
the foundations of Protestantism, which it will need every weapon 
of argument and research successfully to meet. 

To call attention to this field of theological inquiry, hitherto too 
much neglected amongst us, is the object of the following work. 
The chief aim of the writer has been to bring out fully to view 
the ultimate doctrinal principles which lie at the root of each 
system respectively ; and to point out how these principles na- 
turally give rise to the visible results with which the world is 
familiar. Hence it is that several questions, the determination of 
which depends chiefly upon an investigation of facts, — such as the 
alleged supremacy of the Bishop of Rome in the fourth or fifth 
century, or the alleged invalidity of our English orders — are but 
briefly touched upon ; while an unusually large space is devoted 
to purely doctrinal discussions. Indeed these discussions may be 
thought to occupy too large a space by those who do not bear in 
mind that the topic of the Church is, in fact, an epitome of the 
whole Romish controversy, all the other differences of view on 
original sin, justification, and the sacraments, here combining to 
produce a single result. To this abstract mode of treating the 
subject the writer has been led, partly from a conviction that too 
much stress has been laid upon the external, to the overlooking 
of the interior, points of difference between us and Rome, and 
partly because our theology is as rich in historical refutations of 
the pretensions of the Papacy as it is barren in expositions of the 
doctrinal grounds on which the system rests. 

The ground assumed throughout is that of evangelical Pro- 
testantism, the Protestantism of Luther, Calvin, and our own 
reformers, as distinguished from the political, eclectic, and ra- 
tionalistic systems which, at different times, have taken its place. 
The latter systems, which often exhibit as wide a divergency 
from the genuine teaching of the reformers as that of Trent itself 
have been frequently tried, and found of no power to withstand 
the encroachments of the adversary. From the time of Erasmus 
downwards, the mere negation of Romish doctrine has proved 
insufficient for this purpose; and if in the conflict which appeals 
to be impending between us and our ancient opponent, we are to 
come off victorious, it must be by taking our stand on the positive 
doctrines of the Reformation. But while the writer has been at 
no pains to conceal the side which he takes, it has been his aim 
to avoid those one-sided representations of the opposite system, 
which only repel the candid mind, and, by the reaction of senti- 



Vlll PREFACE. 

ment which they occasion, do more injury than good to the cause 
of truth. To maintain that Eomanism is not even a form of 
Christianity, can serve no good purpose, and is to overlook the 
essential distinction between faith, however imperfectly informed, 
and unbelief. A dispassionate impartiality in comparing the sys- 
tem of Trent with our own, and a promptitude to acknowledge 
whatever merits or defects may exist on each side, are quite 
compatible with a hearty conviction of the fundamental truth of 
Protestantism ; and these qualities it has been throughout the 
desire of the writer to cultivate. Indeed, the scientific character 
of the work would, of itself, have rendered any exaggerated state- 
ments, or appeals to popular feeling, out of place. 

It is proper to apprize the reader that one division only of the 
controversy on the subject of the Church — viz. the nature and 
constitution of the Christian society — is here discussed; the 
authority of the Church, and the various questions relating to 
tradition and the rule of faith, not entering into the plan of the 
work. The arrangement adopted may be briefly stated. In the 
first book an attempt is made to fix the true idea of the Church 
— that is, to determine whether it is, as the Eomanist would have 
it, primarily an external institution ; or, as Protestantism teaches, 
a society which has its true being or differentia within. If the 
discussion should here seem unnecessarily extended, it must be 
remembered that this question lies at the very root of the contro- 
versy, and, moreover, is not often found discussed by our own 
divines in a satisfactory manner. The second book is devoted to 
the consideration of the predicates, or attributes, of the Church, 
as expressed in the Catholic creeds, and in the rival confessions. 
The third book contains an exposition of the differences between 
us and Eome on the subject of the Christian ministry. On each 
head the plan pursued has been, first, to determine from the 
authenticated statements of each party what the real point at issue 
is, and then to examine to which side truth inclines. 

With respect to the labours of the learned in this department 
of theology, it has already been observed that amongst ourselves 
it has not been much cultivated. We have treatises against 
Romanism in abundance, but it has not occurred to the writer to 
meet with any work in English theology (Bishop Marsh's small 
treatise excepted) the professed object of which is to institute a 
scientific comparison between the doctrinal confessions of the two 
great sections of the Christian world. Neither does the valuable 
work of Field on the Church, nor the more recent treatise of Mr 



PREFACE. IX 

Palmer, supply this defect : the latter work, indeed, though con- 
taining much valuable information, is by no means calculated to 
introduce the reader to an acquaintance with the essential points 
of difference between Komanists and Protestants. Abroad the 
case has been different. The labours of the philosophical school 
of Komanists, represented by Moehler, De Maistre, and others, 
have had the effect, especially in Germany, of calling into the 
field many eminent theologians of the opposite party; among 
whom may be mentioned Baur, Neander, and Mtzsch. No one 
can peruse the writings of either side without profit ; and to 
Nitzsch's excellent reply to Moehler, in particular, the present 
writer desires to acknowledge his obligations for some of the 
profoundest remarks on the opposite systems which this age has 
produced. 

A copious table of contents — or rather analysis of the work — 
has been prefixed, which, it is hoped, will also serve the purpose 
of an index. 



CONTENTS. 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 

Romanist and Protestant tendencies apparent in the Church from the 
first ------ Page 25—27 

The Protestant conception of the Church, the natural consequence of the 
doctrine of justification by faith - - - 27 

Historical sketch of the formation of Luther's views on the nature and 
authority of the Church - - - . - - 27—29 

Melancthon, Calvin ------ 30 

Effects of the Protestant movement on Romanism. Counter-reformation 
of Trent ------ 31 

In the Romish System, the idea of the Church gives a shape to all other 
doctrines : in Protestantism this governing influence belongs to its doc- 
trine of Justification ----- 31 — 33 

Hence in the dogmatic systems of the one party, the topic of the Church 
usually stands first; in those of the other, that of Justification 33, 34 

Reasons for deviating, in the present instance, from the ordinary procedure 
of Protestant writers - - - - - 34, 35 

The sources whence we are to derive our knowledge of Romanism and 
Protestantism respectively. Not Scripture - 35 — 37 

Xor the ecumenical creeds - 37, 38 

Nor the private writings of the reformers and their opponents - 38, 39 

But the public confessions of faith on each side : 

Romish formularies ----- 39 ? 40 

Principal Protestant ditto - 40 — 42 

BOOK l. 

THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. 
PART I. 

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 
CHAPTER I. 

DECLARATIONS OF THE ROMISH AND PROTESTANT FORMULARIES. 

Council of Trent gives no formal definition of the Church - 43 

Statements of the Romish Catechism - 44 — 47 

Statements of the Protestant confessions. 1. Lutheran. Confession of 
Augsburg. Observation on Art. 19 of the Eoglifth Confession. Ar- 
ticles of Schmalcald. Catechisms of Luther - - 47 — 50 

(xi) 



Xll CONTENTS. 

2. Reformed. The Helvetic, Scotch, Belgic, Tetrapolitan, and Polish 

Confessions. Nowel's catechism - - - - Page 51 56 

Summary of Protestant teaching on the subject of the idea of the Church 

56—58 
CHAPTER II. 

POINTS OF AGREEMENT AND FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 
THEM AS REGARDS THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. 

Importance of first ascertaining how far the parties are agreed. Instances 
in which this rule has been transgressed - - 59, 60 

On both sides it is admitted : — 

1. That the Christian life is essentially a social one. Scriptural notices 
on this point -_-_._ gj — gg 

2. That the Church possesses the property of being visible. Social wor- 
ship. The Sacraments ----- 63 ? (34 

3. That the Church is a means to bring men to Christ. Twofold aspect 
under which the Church must always be considered - - 64 — 67 

4. That, in one sense, the' Church is invisible. Acknowledgments of 
Romish catechism, and of Bellarmin, on this point - 67 — 69 

The real point of difference is, not absolute, but relative, — i. e. it consists 
in the relative importance, and position, which each party assigns to what 
is visible, and what is invisible, in the Church. The Romanist makes 
the essence of the Church to lie in what is visible ; the Protestant in 
what is invisible - - - - 69 — 71 

This evident from the confessional statements on each side. Bellarmin's 
definition - - - - - - v 71 — 74 

A mere relative difference may give rise to systems of a very opposite 
character. Arianism. Sabellianism, &c. - - 74, 75 

Bellarmin's statement of the difference - 75 

Both parties accept the statements of the three creeds on this article ; but 
they assign to them a somewhat different sense - - 75, 76 

PART II. 

DISCUSSION OF THE QUESTION. 
CHAPTER I. 

METHOD OF THE INQUIRY. 

Romanists and Protestants differ on the previous question : — What is the 
authoritative source of truth in religion? Hence difficulty of their 
arriving at a mutual understanding - 77, 78 

In this point lies the principal distinction between the Church system of 
the 5th century and later Romanism. Early fathers maintained the 
same formal principle as that of Protestantism, — viz. the supreme au- 
thority of Scripture in matters of faith 78, 79 

This principle here assumed - - - - - 79 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

Method of inquiry adopted ; not the exegetical - - Page 80 

Nor that of a. priori argument. Arguments of this kind, commonly urged 

by Romanists, prove nothing, as against Protestants - 80 — 82 

But the historical ------ 82 

Reasons for making the Jewish dispensation the starting point of the in- 
quiry - - - - - - 82—84 

Leading divisions of the survey - - - - 84, 85 

CHAPTER II. 

THE JEWISH DISPENSATION. 

Section I. 

THE LAW OF MOSES. ITS NATURE AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 

Reasons of the delay of the Saviour's appearance - - 8G, 87 

Preparation for his coming : among heathens negative merely, among Jews 
special and positive - - - - - - 87 

The main principle on which the Jewish polity was constructed, that of law. 
True import of the term legal, as applied to a religious system 87 — 89 

Illustrations of such a system. From political government. From the work 
of education -.---- 89 — 91 

Such a system necessarily appeals to the baser motives of our nature 91 

The Jewish economy of the nature just described. An external Theocracy 

92 

Meaning of 2 Cor. iii. 6. - - - - 93 

The law, when first promulgated, inculcated nothing beyond the national 
worship of Jehovah, as the tutelary God of the nation - 93, 94 

This observation, however, applies rather to the form, than to the sub- 
stance, of the original enactment. Substance of the moral law the same 
in every age. But to unfold its full meaning was the work of subsequent 
prophecy ______ 94 ? 95 

Exposition of Gal. iii. 19. - - - - - 95, 96 

The law worked chiefly, though not exclusively, by the agency of fear 

96—99 

Under such a system, a visible symbol of the Divine presence, a consecrated 
locality, a human priesthood confined to a certain tribe, and visible sacri- 
fices, naturally had a place - 99, 100 

Sanctions of the Mosaic covenant exclusively temporal - 100, 101 

Elementary nature of the Mosaic system accounted for by the imperfect 
state of religious knowledge among the Jews at that time 102, 103 

The same circumstance explains the length of time during which the nation 
was left under the law - - - - 103, 104 

Reasons for dwelling at such length on the Mosaic economy. The Romish 
conception of the Church is that of a new law. This visible, especially 
in the Romish doctrine of Sanctification - - 104 — 106 

Modern advocates of the Church system here coincide with Rome 106 — 108 



XIV CONTENTS. 

Section II. 

THE SPIRITUAL OPERATION OF THE MOSAIC LAW. 

Reasonable to suppose that the Jew must have, in time, emerged from the 
elementary system of the law, and advanced to a more spiritual worship 
of God - - - - - - - Page 108 

This actually the case. To the pious Jew the law was a " school-master 
unto Christ." 1. In the elementary knowledge which it imparted. The 
legal sacrifices, &c. must have raised an expectation of a better atone- 
ment to come, and thereby made their own insufficiency felt 109, 110 

2. In the preparatory discipline which it furnished. The incorporation of 
the moral law in the civil code produced in the Jewish mind a conviction 
of sin 111—113 

This feeling must have operated to cause a depreciation of the Levitical 
ritual. Effects of the absence of it in the Romish system 113 — 115 

The analogies of nature would lead us to conclude that such must have 
been the effect of the law on the mind of a pious Jew - 115, 116 

The above conclusions confirmed by later Jewish Scriptures. Especially 
by the book of Psalms - 116—118 

Section III. 

THE PROPHETIC REVELATION. 

Threefold division of the Jewish Scriptures not strictly accurate - 118 
Prophecy, like the Law, introductory to the Gospel, but in a different way 

119 

Subject-matter of the prophetic Canon, either didactic, or predictive 119 

Teaching of prophecy confirms the impressions supposed to be produced by 

the Law. It insists upon the worthlessness of mere external worship ; 

it deals with the concerns of personal religion ; and at the same time, it 

furnishes clearer notices of Gospel doctrine - - 120 — 126 

Predictive matter of prophecy, as regards the Christian dispensation. In 

what sense the new dispensation is described as a continuation of the old 

(Is xlix. 14—20.) 126—129 

Other prophetic characteristics of it - - - 129, 130 

Jer. xxxi. 31 — 34. especially deserving of attention - 130, 131 

Summary of the prophetic teaching and predictions - 131 — 133 

Section IV. 

THE MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST, AND THAT OF CHRIST. 

Objects of our Lord's mission several in number - 133 — 135 

The ministry of Christ properly belongs to the old dispensation. Its an- 
ticipatory character ----- 135, 136 

State of religion among the Jews when Christ and His forerunner appeared. 
Pharisaism. Sadducees - 136 — 139 

The Baptist's ministry; its distinctive features - 139 — 141 



CONTENTS. XV 

The teaching of our Lord, in part identical with that of John, and the 

consummation of that of the prophets - - Page 141, 142 

Christ not a lawgiver, in the Romish sense of the word - 142 — 144 

The character in which Christ appeared was that of a Rabbi; an office 

which had no necessary connexion with the ceremonial law - 144 

Approaching change by which the Word of God was to become the chief 

instrument of the Spirit, foreshadowed by Christ's ministry. Hence the 

stress laid by Christ on faith. The Jew had the Word of God in the 

Scriptures, but not as a standing ordinance, and covenanted means of 

grace - - - - - - 144 — 146 

To believe that Jesus was the Christ, the final probation of the Jews. 
Suitableness of this test. What Christ really was, not discernible by 
the eye of sense - - - - - - 146 

Every fundamental doctrine of the Gospel declared by Christ - 147 
Cursory review of the ground passed over. The operation of the Law, and 
the teaching of prophecy, both tended to the same point 147, 148 

Hence easy to predict the nature of the Gospel dispensation - 148 

And to explain why the Jews in the time of Christ, notwithstanding their 
hatred of idolatry, were cut off from being the people of God 148, 149 

CHAPTER III. 

THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 

Section I. 

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 

Christian dispensation formally commenced with the descent of the Holy 
Ghost -----_. 150 

Fact that the Church from the first was a visible society, does not prove 
the Romish theory to be correct - 150, 151 

Characteristic features of a religious system, which, while being visible, 
should yet, unlike that of the law, work from within outwards. First 
feature : the outward ordinances of such a system would presuppose the 
existence of the inner spirit - 151, 152 

Second feature : the ordinances would, if possible, be not new, but familiar 
ones ----__ 152, 153 

Third feature : the work of external organization would be one of time, 
and progressive - - - - - - 153 

Section II. 
THE sacraments. 

These tests applied to the Church of Christ. And first, of the Sacra- 
ments ------- 154 

Neither of the Sacraments, as regards the outward sign, new appoint- 
ments - - - - - - 154, 155 



XVI CONTENTS. 

The change wrought in the existing ordinances (baptism, and the paschal 
breaking of bread) of a spiritual nature - Page 155 

No liturgical ceremonial delivered with them. Nor was the administration 
of them formally committed to a priestly caste - 155, 156 

, Similar remarks apply to the ordinance of the keys. Matt, xviii. 15 — 19. 

156 

The Sacraments chiefly distinguishable from legal ordinances by the place 
which they occupy in the salvation of the individual. They do not 
communicate spiritual life in the first instance, but strengthen and per- 
fect it ----- - 156, 157 

Examination of the Sacramental system. Meaning of the expression 
" Corporate life." Note on Gladstone's Church Principles 157 — 159 

The dogma of the Corporate life, combined with that of the Sacraments 
working ex opere operato, naturally gives rise to the Romish idea of the 
Church 159—161 

How far the Sacramentalist is in the right. Union with Christ the great 
blessing of the Gospel dispensation - 161 — 165 

Point in which the Sacramental system diverges from the teaching of 
Scripture ------ 165, 166 

Statements of a recent expounder of it (Archdeacon Wilberforce) examined. 
Erroneous interpretation of the " Body of Christ " - 166, 167 

Scripture uniformly makes the Word of God the first instrument of uniting 
men to Christ ______ 167 

The Apostolic preaching ----- 168 

Expression "in Christ" invariably presupposes the existence of repentance 
and faith. Note on John xv. 2. - - - 169 

Under the Christian dispensation the ordinance of the Word possesses a 
Sacramental character ----- 169 — 171 

Faith a gift of the Holy Ghost - - - -171, 17 2 

First accession of spiritual life comes not from union with the Church. 
Schleiermacher's dictum - 172, 173 

Yet the intervention of the Church necessary - - 174 

Protestant led to his conception of the Church from his making the Word 
the first instrument of regeneration - - - 176,177 



CONTENTS. XV11 

Section III. 

THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH IN ITS EARLIER STAGES. 

Antecedently probable that Christ would make it clear according to what 
form of polity Christian societies are to be constituted Page 177, 178 

Statements of the Council of Trent on this subject - - 178 

Difficulty under which the advocates of the divine right of Episcopacy 
labour in proving their theory from Scripture alone - 178, 179 

The notion, that the three orders were implicitly enveloped in the Aposto- 
late, examined - 179 — 181 

The Jewish synagogue the real model after which the polity of the Church, 
in its first stages, was constructed. Remarks on the origin, and nature, 
of synagogical worship .... 181 — 183 

Government of the Synagogue - - - 183, 184 

Its worship the point of transition between that of the Law and that of the 
Gospel ...... 184, 185 

Proofs that the Synagogue, not the temple, was the pattern which the Apos- 
tles proposed to themselves in organizing Christian societies 185 — 188 

Thus in polity, as in the Sacraments, Christ adapted to the purposes of His 
Church well-known, and existing, forms - - 188, 189 

Incorrectness of the assertion that the Church appeared primarily, as "a 
visible organized system, " distinct from Judaism. The first Christians 
regarded as a Jewish sect .... 189 — 191 

The organization of Christian societies advanced by successive steps. 
Origin of the diaconate, and of the presbyterate - 191 — 193 

Contrast in this point between the Law and the Gospel - 194, 195 

That ■ ' Christianity came into the world, rather as an idea than an institu- 
tion" perfectly true, if for "idea" we substitute "spiritual influence" 

195—197 

Section IY. 

ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 

Conclusion from the foregoing remarks. The Church not primarily, a visi- 
ble institution - - - - - - 198 

Difference between the Law and the Gospel in this respect implied in Gal. 
iv. 1—6. - - - - - - 198—201 

Meaning of 2 Cor. iii. 17 - - - - 201 

CHAPTER IY. 

THE TEACHING OF THE APOSTOLIC EPISTLES IN REFERENCE TO THE IDEA 
OF THE CHURCH. 

Section I. 

THE APOSTOLIC CONCEPTION OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

Definition of a church, according to St. Paul. - - 203, 204 

Examination of the statement that St. Paul regards a Christian society as 

consisting merely of professing Christians. Refutation of this notion, 

and especially of the argument, founded on the transfer of Jewish terms, 

to the Gospel. ..... 204—207 



XY111 CONTENTS. 

The legal part of the Jewish economy has passed into Christianity only 
under a spiritualized form. Instances in the words Temple, Priesthood, 
Sacrifice, Sabbath, &c. - - - - Page 201, 208 

Foundation of the error. The Jew was so by natural birth, the Christian 
is born again - - 208,209 

What is implied in the rovg Gco&pwovg of Acts ii. 47. - 209, 210 

Modifications of meaning which the terms of the law — e. g. "elect," 
"saints," "sons of God" — undergo under the Gospel - 210 — 213 

Note on Archbishop Whately's "Essays," and Archbishop Sumner's 
"Apostolical Preaching" .... 211—213 

Objection from the confessedly mixed state of local churches shown to be 
untenable ------ 213—217 

Statements of Mr. Palmer examined - - - 211,218 

Section II. 

THE MYSTICAL BODY OP CHRIST AS DISTINGUISHED FROM VISIBLE CHURCHES. 
PROTESTANT DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE 
CHURCH. 

Distinction naturally denied by Romanists. By some also among our- 
selves -.-... 218, 219 

Various sense? of the word exxtyma. Two only really distinct 219, 220 

Peculiar language of Scripture when it describes the Church as the body 
of Christ ...... 220, 221 

Points of distinction between this and the ordinary acceptations of the 
term. The Church, regarded as the body of Christ, is one ; is one 
society in the strict sense of the word ; and its component parts are, not 
societies, but individuals .... 221, 224 

The Church, as the body of Christ, not an abstraction. Nor can the lan- 
guage of the New Testament writers on this point be regarded merely as 
that of anticipation - - - - - 224, 2 27 

Quotation from Augustin - - - - 227 

In maintaining the distinction, we neither make the true church absolutely 
invisible, nor affirm that there are two churches, one visible, the other in- 
visible, nor affirm that there are two churches, one visible, the other in- 
visible. Real meaning of the expression "the invisible Church"229 — 231 

How the one true Church, in its corporate capacity invisible, becomes 
visible - - - - - - 231, 232 

Point of connexion between the Church as invisible and the Church as 
visible _..---- 233 

Further explanations ..---- 233 

Why the Church visible never can perfectly correspond with the Church in 
its truth 234—236 

Summing up of the teaching of the Reformers on this point 236, 237 

Melancthon's explanations .... 237, 239 



CONTENTS. Xix 

CONCLUSION. 

GENERAL SUMMING UP OF THE ARGUMENT. 

In Christianity the external theocracy has given place to one of the spirit 

Page 240, 241 
Hence truth of the Protestant definition - - 241, 242 

Romish definition opposed to reason as well as to Christian instinct 243, 244 
Xote on Pearson - - - - - - 244, 245 

The case of the individual Christian (Gladstone C. P., p. 115.) not an 

analogous one - 245, 246 

The Protestant alone assigns to the Church a place among the articles of 

Faith 246, 241 

Superiority of the Protestant theory in a philosophical point of view 247, 248 
Ultra-Protestanism less dangerous than Romanism - 249, 250 

Coincidence of rationalism with Romanism on this point - 250 

BOOK II. 

THE NOTES AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE CHURCH. 

Introductory Remarks ... . 251 

PART I. 

NOTES OF A CHURCH. 

Difference between the Romish and the Protestant notes naturally springs 
from the difference between the parties on the subject of the nature of 
the one true Church. - 252 — 255 

True significance of the Protestant notes. They indicate the connecting 
point between the Church visible and invisible, and they contain an im- 
plicit protest against the exclusive theory of Rome - 255 — 258 

Objections urged by Romanists against the Protestant notes shown to be 
without weight ..... 258 — 264 

PART II. 

THE ATTRIBUTES OR PREDICATES OF THE CHURCH. 

Introductory Remarks. 
Origin and import of these terms. Original meaning of the word "Catho- 
lic" - 265—267 

CHAPTER I. 

THE unity of the church. 
This phrase admits of various significations - - - 268 

True notion of organic unity .... 268, 269 

Organic unity belongs only to the mystical body of Christ - 269, 270 
Romanism has here the advantage over other systems which make the 

essence of the Church to lie in its visible characteristics. Newman. 

Moehler 270 273 



XX CONTENTS. 

Common principles of unity do not make Churches one society, Page 273,274 
Secondary unities mentioned by St. Paul (Ephes. iv. 4. 6.) - 274, 275 
Present question relates to organic unity : whether, and how far, it has 

succeeded in becoming visible. The episcopate - - 275 

Church theory of episcopacy ... - 276,277 

Historical inquiry into this subject. And first : Can episcopacy be proved 

to be of divine origin — *: e. to have been instituted by Christ himself ? 

277, 278 

No evidence of this. The missions of the twelve and the seventy not to 
the point ------ 278, 279 

No command of Christ producible - - - 279, 280 

No office in the synagogue resembling that of a bishop - 280, 281 

The Apostles not formal bishops - - - 282, 283 

Yet the position of the Apostles in reference to presbyters and deacons not 
to be overlooked ----- 284, 286 

The polity of the Church of Apostolic, and only so far of Divine, origin 

- 286 
Secondly, can episcopacy be proved to be of apostolical origin from Scrip- 
ture alone - - - - - - 286 

Difficulty of proving the third order of ministers from Scripture alone. 

Only two orders found in the New Testament - - 286 

Proofs of this - - - - - - 287—289 

Cases of Timothy and Titus. They do not establish the fact of a formal 
epispocate ------ 289—292 

Keal officers of these ministers ... - 292—294 

St. James. Diotrephes ----- 294 

Cases of Timothy and Titus, however, not without their value 295 

To Episcopacy, proper, an earlier date cannot be assigned than a. d. 70. 
Reasons on which this conclusion is founded - • 295 — 298 

Thirdly ; Can Episcopacy be proved to be apostolical by the joint evidence 
of Scripture and uninspired testimony ? - - 298 

Testimony of antiquity to be received. Difference, however, between apos- 
tolical appointments recorded in Scripture and those which have come 
down to us through uninspired channels - - 298 — 300 

Cogency of the evidence in favor of the apostolicity of episcopacy 300, 301 
Danger of taking too high ground on this question - 302 

Unfair statements of the opponents of episcopacy - - 303,304 

If episcopacy had been clearly capable of proof from Scripture, could we 
have inferred it to be essential to the Church ? Is every appointment 
which can be proved from Scripture to have proceeded from apostles to 
be deemed a divine law ? Discussion of this point - 304 — 310 

Natural of episcopacy: partly positive, and partly negative. Posi- 
tively, it is to be regarded as a manifestation of the unseen unity of the 
Spirit ------- 310, 311 

Independent theory unscriptural - 311 



CONTENTS. XXI 

A primitive church - - - Page 311, 312 

Christianity naturally tends to episcopal centres - 313, 314 

Negatively, it was a safeguard against the evils of division. State of the 

Church towards the close of the apostolic age - - 314 

Rival factions of the followers of St. Peter and St. Paul - 315, 316 
Heresies of the apostolic age - - - - -317 

The episcopate fitted to preserve union and to repress heresy - 31T, 319 
Subsequent and more comprehensive forms of unity. Moehler's admissions 
- - - - - 320, 321 

Metropolitanism. Patriarchates - - - - 321, 323 

Cyprian's theory of episcopacy. Sketch of the unity of the Church in the 

4th century - . - - - 323, 325 

Papacy followed as a matter of course. Nothing anti- Christian in the idea 

of an cclesiastical centre of Western Christendom - 325, 327 

Point at which the papacy became anti-Christian. Fact transformed into 

a divine law - . - - - - 327 

The same observation applies to the whole structure of the Church system 

327, 328 

Real difference between Romanists and Protestants on the subject of 

Church polity - 328, 329 

Occasions on which the Tridentine principle first made its appearance. 

Cyprian -..--_ 329—331 

Growth of the dogma of the Roman pontiff - - 331 — 334 

We must protest against the earlier as well as the later exemplification of 

the principle ..... 334, 335 

Section II. 

THE ONENESS OF THE CHURCH. 

Romanists and Protestants agree in the abstract proposition, that out of 
the Catholic church there is no covenanted salvation. But they differ 
as to what that Catholic church is - - - 335 337 

Doctrine of Rome only the following out of the patristic teaching. Cyprian. 
Augustin ...... 337—339 

Protestant must reject the patristic as well as the Romish idea of the one- 
ness of the Church ..... 339 340 

Protestant notes, viewed as exclusive tests - ' - 340 

Observations on fundamentals. Twofold source of our knowledge in divine 
things, the voice of the Church and Scripture - - 341—343 

Creeds. Floating sentiment of the Church - - 343, 344 

Conclusions from Scripture .... 34G 350 

Section III. 

THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 

Romanist makes the essential sanctity of the Church external, Protestant 
internal ...... 350, 351 

Sanctity of the Church imperfect yet progressive - 351,353 



XX11 CONTENTS. 

Visible evidence thereof. First fruits of the Spirit - Page 353 

Secondly, the exercise of discipline ... 354 ; 355 

Error of the Montanist, Novatian, and Donatist schisms - 355, 356 

Augustin, in controversy with the Donatists, makes a near approach to the 
Protestant doctrine of the invisible Church - - 356,357 

Difference between them - 358, 359 

BOOK III. 

THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 

That the Christian ministry is of divine origin acknowledged by both par- 
ties. Points as which the differences commence 360 
CHAPTER I. 

THE ORIGIN AND PERPETUATION OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 

On the necessity of an apostolical succession, Romanists and Protestants 
are agreed .--.., 361 

Twofold sense of the term "Apostolicity" ... 362 

Statement of the Romish doctrine of the apostolical succession 362 — 364 
Consistency of the Tridentine theory ; and necessary inferences therefrom 

364, 365 
Connexion between this theory and the Tridentine conception of the Church 

365, 367 
How far the Protestant goes with his opponent. Both^arties are agreed — 

first, on the necessity of an external vocation to the ministry 367 

Secondly, on the perpetuation of the ministerial office by succession 368, 369 
Modern sectarianism here in error - - - 360, 371 

The essential differences lie deeper. The inner constitution of the New 
Testament ministry, as we gather it from Scripture - 371, 372 

The ministry, in its primary state, a gift, not an office - 373, 374 

Mistaken interpretation of 1 Cor. xii. 28. and of Ephes. iv. 11, 12. 374 
The New Testament XaQiafiura. Division of them - 375,376 

From 1 Cor. xii. xiii. xiv. we learn what the Christian ministry, in its idea, 
is - - - - - - - 376—378 

Principle of formal transition not applicable to gifts of this kind 378 
Apparent exception, not really so - - - - 378 — 380 

No such gift as a mystical grace of priesthood to be found in the New Tes- 
tament ------ 380, 382 

Points in which the Romish theory deviates from Scripture 382, 384 

Significancy of the rite used in setting apart persons to the ministry. No 

specific rite of ordination found in the New Testament - 384 — 386 

Note on the origin of the term "ordination" - - 385, 386 

The minister of ordination not defined in Scripture. The Apostles, when 

present, naturally performed this office - - - 385, 387 

Yet the fact that no instance (Timothy's case excepted) of presbyters alone 

ordaining occurs, not without weight. Argument from it in favor of 

episcopal ordination. ----- 387 — 389 



CONTENTS. XX111 

General conclusions. The natural ministry exists antecedently to the 
positive ------ Page 389, 390 

Objection, that the age of miraculous gifts has passed away, met 391 

Ordinary endowments have taken their place, but the idea of the ministry 

remains the same ------ 391 

State of transition perceptible in St. Paul's pastoral epistles 391, 392 
Inferences respecting the necessity of an uninterrupted visible succession 

- 392—394 
CHAPTER, II. 

THE POWERS OF THE CLERGY. 

Statement of the question - - - - 395 

Section I. 

CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT "LORDS OVER GOD'S HERITAGE." 

Hierarchical tendencies of Romanism - 395 — 398 

Opposite tendencies of Protestantism - 398 

Clergy are not the Church - - - 399 

Yet not the creatures of the congregation - 399 

Proper adjustment of lay and clerical influence depends upon the observance 

of three rules. First: free admission of the laity to the deliberative 

assemblies of the Church. Steps by which the laity became excluded 

from synods. Evils thence arising - 400 — 403 

Secondly : the consent of the laity to local settlement of pastors 403 — 405 

Thirdly : concurrence of the laity in the exercise of discipline 405, 406 

Section II 

CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 

Antiquity of the dogma of a human priesthood under the Gospel 40*7, 408 
Decisions of the Council of Trent - 409 

Rationale of the "impressed character," as connected with the sacrament 
of orders - - - • - - - 409, 410 

Testimony of Scripture ; express against the notion of a priesthood on earth 

- - 410—412 

Teaching of the epistle to the Hebrews - 412 — 414 

Christian ministers never in Scripture termed priests - 414, 415 

All Christians priests ----- 415 ? 41 6 

In the pastoral epistles of St. Paul, no priestly fumctions ascribed to Timo- 
thy and Titus - - - - - 416, 41? 
Necessary for the Apostles to have expressly announced the continuance of 
a priesthood on earth, inasmuch as the first Christians would be likely to 
draw an opposite conclusion - 41?, 418 
The constitution of the first Christian societies decisive against the dogma. 
Synagogues bore the same relation to the temple which local churches 
do to the mystical body of Christ - - - 418,419 
Ministerial gifts of the New Testament have no connexion with priestly 
functions ------- 420 



XXIV CONTENTS. 

Further reflections on the relation of the synagogue to the temple, Page 420 
Explanation of the circumstance that the first Christians frequented the 

temple services - 421, 422 

Examination of passages cited in support of the sacerdotal theory; Matthew, 

xxvi. 26—28., xxviii. 19, 20., John, xx. 21—23., Matthew, xvi. 19., 

and xviii. 18. - - - - - 423, 424 

Apostles appear in our Lord's discourses in a threefold character 424, 426 
This test applied to the passages aforesaid - - 426 — 428 

No law to be found in the New Testament restricting the administration of 

the sacraments to the apostles, orpersons commissioned by them 428 — 430 
Different fate of the two sacraments - 430,431 

Law of order not to be infringed ... 431 

Exposition of Matthew, xvi. 19., xviii. 18., and John, xx. 21 — 23. 432 
Powers thus conveyed by Christ never fully existed save in the apostles. 

Modified sense in which they may still be said to exist in the 

Church ------ 432—440 

Justification by faith incompatible with the sacerdotal theory - 441 
Danger of the statement that the Church is the representative of Christ 

upon earth - - - - - - 441 — 444 

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER. 

CHURCH PRINCIPLES ILLUSTRATED FROM THE WRITINGS OF CYPRIAN AND 

AUGUSTIN. 

Peculiar bias of the English reformation. Advantages and disadvantages 

thereof ------ 444—446 

False position taken up by our reformers against Rome. Evils hence 

resulting ------ 446— 448 

Formal principle of our reformers not incorporated in the thirty-nine 

articles ------- 448 

Importance of recognizing the fact that the patristic system is that of 

Trent in germ ------ 448 

Difference between the Greek and the Latin fathers. Illustrations from 

the Latin fathers : and particularly Cyprian and Augustin - 449 
First; as regards the nature of the Church. 1. Its oneness. Statements 

of Cyprian and Augustin on this point - - 449, 450 

Observations thereon ----- 450 — 456 

2. Its unity. Tertullian's tests. Cyprian's theory - 456 — 460 

Secondly ; as regards the functions of the Church. Statements of Cyprian 

and Augustin on regeneration ; on remission of sins ; on the sacraments; 

on satisfaction, &c. - 460 — 468 



THE 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 

&c. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The controversy on the subject of the Church, as a distinct topic 
of theology, owes its existence, like the other questions in dispute 
between Komanists and Protestants, to the great religious move- 
ment of the sixteenth century. Admitting this, we must, how- 
ever, be on our guard against the common, but erroneous, suppo- 
sition, that the sentiments which upon this, as well as the other 
points of controversy, found a mouth-piece in Luther and Mel- '' 
ancthon, and were afterwards embodied in the Protestant confes- 
sions, had been, up to that time, unknown among Christians, and 
were subjective peculiarities of the first Keformers. The truth 
is, that, from the very first, Eomanist and Protestant tendencies 
simultaneously manifested themselves, and are found to co-exist, 
not only within the pale of the same Catholic Church but in the 
same individual minds ; of which, as regards the particular topic 
under discussion, the nature and constitution of the Church, Au- 
gustin, in his writings against the Donatists, is a remarkable 
instance. It is hard to say which of the great contending parties 
of Christendom can claim this eminent Father as their own ; and 
if candour compels us to admit that, on the whole, the Tridentine 
theory finds the greater measure of support in his writings, Pro- 
testantism can still appeal to them as affording a confirmation of 
its own teaching upon more than one of the questions which ha 
been raised concerning the nature of the Church. In like man- 
ner, Tertullian and Jerome may, on the subject of the Christian 
ministry, be made to speak the language both of Protestantism 
and Romanism, according as each party selects from their writings 



26 CHUECH OF CHRIST. 

what it finds most accordant with its own system. In saying, 
then, that the controversy on the subject of the Church is the 
product of the Eeformation, we must be understood as only 
affirming that it then assumed a formal shape, and became one of 
the leading points around which the differences of the two 
systems ranged themselves. Before that era, the opposite ten- 
dencies, though clearly traceable up to the very age of the 
Apostles, had not yet worked themselves out to their respective 
results ; nor had the dominant body, calling itself the Church, 
become fully alive to their essential incompatibility. No formal 
decision having as yet abridged the sphere of discursive thought, 
theologians, according as they inclined more to (what afterwards 
was called) the Protestant, or the Eomish, version of Christianity, 
took different sides, and were permitted a considerable degree of 
latitude in their teaching. Hence the appeal of the first Eeformers 
to a general council, as the most effectual method of bringing the 
points at issue between themselves and their opponents to a satis- 
factory settlement : they affirmed that they were contending, not 
against the Catholic Church, but against the Papal party in the 
Church. Nothing can be more contrary to fact than the assertion 
which has been made, that Protestantism can find no trace of it- 
self in ancient Christianity* 

The explanation of the fact which thus meets us in the pages of 
nt£*u^* Church history, is to be found in the facility with which antago- 
^ZTw^ <fA?nistic doctrines will often repose side by side in the mind of the 
knlx individual Christian, or in the Church at large, until circumstances 
occur to bring out their intrinsic opposition. Of this, the contro- 
versy on the relation of divine grace to human agency may be 
adduced as an instance. It may seem to Protestants unaccountable 
how Augustin, for example, could have been able to reconcile his 
views upon this point with those which he ordinarily, though by 
no means uniformly, maintains on the constitution of the Church ; 
yet it is certain that he was unconscious of any contrariety be- 
tween the two. The same writer who, in controversy with the 
Pelagians, speaks not only as a Protestant, but as a Protestant of 
the reformed type as distinguished from the Lutheran, is found, 
when discussing topics connected with the Church, following out 
fully the principles of Cyprian ; principles which only needed time 
and culture to develope themselves into the Church system of the 
middle ages. The same juxta-position of mutually repulsive ten- 
dencies appears in some of Augustin's successors, and even in the 

* Newman's Essay on Development, p. 6. 



iMupn 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

Schoolmen. The readiest way of explaining the apparent incon- 
sistency, is to suppose that, in the case of these eminent teachers 
of the ancient Church, the relative bearings towards each other 
of the Augustinian doctrines of grace, and of those of the Church 
system, had not as yet been subjected to the action of the logical 
faculty : as Churchmen, they threw themselves into the system in 
which they had been nurtured, while as Christians they drew their 
spiritual nutriment from the Scriptures ; and, for a time, the hete- 
rogeneous elements of their religious life were intermingled, though 
they could not coalesce. Of course, this state of things could not 
last always. "When antagonistic principles form part of the same 
system, a collision, though circumstances may retard it, becomes 
at length inevitable; and the weaker is expelled by the more 
powerful. So it has occurred in the Eomish Church, with respect 
to the particular doctrines with which Augustin's name is asso- 
ciated. It has at length been perceived that they are out of place 
in the Tridentine system. The affinity between Pelagianism and 
the hierarchical theory has come to light, and is recognised. The 
consequence is, that the doctrines which were once tolerated are 
now deemed heretical ; and the history of Jansenism proves how 
much more clearly, since the Council of Trent brought out the 
Eomish dogmas into distinct shape, the papal theologians have 
perceived what is compatible, and what is not, with their system, 
than did their predecessors who lived before the Eeformation. 

It must also be borne in mind, that, while, undoubtedly, it was 
the Eeformation that gave rise to a Protestant, as distinguished > • . 
from a Eomish, doctrine of the Church, the controversy upon this ' 
subject was by no means the real spring of the movement. The 
Protestant conception of the Church follows naturally from the ' 
doctrine of justification by faith, and must sooner or later have 
been arrived at by the Eeformers : it was the latter doctrine, how- 
ever, that constituted the original ground of contention between 
Luther and his opponents, and neither party was at first aware of 
its pregnant consequences. The German Eeformer had, as is well 
known, no notion, when he first opposed the sale of indulgences, 
of questioning, either the authority of the Pope, or the soundness 
of the ecclesiastical system in which he had been bred. Long- 
before he emerged from the convent of Erfurth, he had become 
possessed, by the perusal of Scripture, of the distinctive doctrine 
of the gospel : but, at that period of his life, he was unconscious 
of its incompatibility with the received notions on the subject of 
the Church. Rejoicing in the peace it had brought to his own 



28 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

conscience, and satisfied with the liberty which he enjoyed of pro- 
claiming it to others, he preached justification by faith, that is, 
the free forgiveness of sin to all believers, in the wooden chapel 
of Wittemberg ; nor once suspected that the truths which he drew 
from the fountain of the living word, so long sealed up, and ex- 
pounded to his admiring auditory, were irreconcilable with the 
other doctrines of Eomanism, to which, as yet, he gave his full 
adhesion. At that time, he was a Eomanist, preaching Protestant 
doctrine. In the simplicity of his heart, he believed that he was 
advancing nothing but what was agreeable to the mind of the 
Church ; for how could it be supposed that she would teach con- 
trary to the word of God ? At this early period of his history, 
Eome had no more devoted adherent than Luther ; and doubtless, 
if providential circumstances had not ordered it otherwise, he 
would have lived and died, like many a pious monk before him, a 
professed Eomanist, but a Protestant at heart. It was not, how- 
ever, destined to be so. The system of indulgences, carried out 
into practice in its grossest form, roused the monk of Wittemberg 
to a vivid consciousness of the import of the great truth which 
had become the nutriment of his spiritual life : he protested pub- 
licly against the scandal ; but still without any intention of im- 
pugning the authority of the rulers of the Church. At this critical 
moment, it hung in suspense whether or not there would be a real, 
and effective, reformation. Things had come to such a pass as to 
be no longer endurable by the growing intelligence of the nations 
of Western Christendom ; and intimations, not to be mistaken, 
were given from various quarters, that the Church must either 
voluntarily reform herself, or submit to be reformed. Had her 
rulers, at Luther's first appearance, possessed the most ordinary 
share of prudence, had they been able to discern the signs of the 
times, they would, by timely concessions, have endeavoured to 
avert the coming storm: they would have corrected the most 
prominent abuses complained of, which they might easily have 
done, and yet have left the principles whence those abuses sprang 
untouched. But infatuation had fallen upon the papal party. 
Forgetting the vast impulse which the invention of printing, and 
the revival of letters, had communicated to the European mind, 
and shutting their eyes to the unequivocal symptoms of a growing 
religious sense around them, Leo X. and his counsellors had re- 
course to the expedient, which his predecessors had found so 
effectual, of interposing the shield of papal infalibility between 
the corruptions of the Church and their assailants. Instead, there- 



INTKODUCTION. 



29 



fore, of joining issue with. Luther on the practice itself which had 
called forth his opposition, the emissaries of Eome cut short all 
discussion with the remark, that indulgences, having been insti- 
tuted by the Pope in accordance with the teaching of the Scho- 
lastic doctors, were now a matter of faith, and, as such, must be 
received with unquestioning submission. It was then that, for the 
first time, Luther began to entertain doubts respecting the validity 
of the Papal claim of infallibility. Refusing to submit to so sum- 
mary a settlement of the question, he appealed from the authority 
of the Pope to that of a general council. He soon, however, dis- 
covered that little was hereby gained ; for the question immediately 
presented itself, According to what standard of doctrine, and in 
dependence upon what authorities, was such, a council to frame its 
decisions ? The advocates of the Papacy might perhaps have con- 
sented to submit the question in dispute to a council in which, as 
heretofore, the Papal constitutions, and the Scholastic theology, 
should be the guiding lights ; but Luther, who was well acquainted 
with the spirit of that theology, felt, with increasing clearness of 
conviction as his views of scriptural truth became more extended, 
that in such, an assembly his cause would be lost. His next de- 
mand, therefore, was for a council in which Holy Scripture should 
be recognised as the touchstone of doctrinal statements : a demand 
which, as manifestly striking at the root of the received doctrine 
concerning the authority of the Church, was at once rejected by 
Rome.* 

It was thus that the formal principle of Protestantism, viz. the 
supreme authority of Scripture in matters of faith, was gradually 
arrived at ; not, as may be supposed, without many a severe strug- 
gle on Luther's part against early prepossessions. It has been 
often alleged that, in entering the lists with Rome, he was actuated 
by an impatience of legitimate authority, or other unworthy mo- 
tives ; but the authentic records in which he so graphically de- 
scribes the mental effort which it cost him to appear as an opponent 
of the Papal chair sufficiently refute the assertion. Had but per- 
mission been given him to teach unmolested the doctrines which 
he found in Scripture, he would gladly have continued in commu- 
nion with the bishop of Rome : it was by the force of circumstances 
that he was driven first to examine, and then to reject, the whole 



* Ceux qui avoient embrass6 les opinions de Luther demandoient lo concilc, a condition 
\ue tout y fflt d6cid6 par le saint Ecriture, a l'exclusion do toutes les constitutions dea 
Papes et de la th6ologie Scolastique; 6tant bien assures que c'ctoit le moyen de d6fendre 
leur doctrine. - Sarpi, Hist, du Qmc. de Trente, translated by Cournyer, p. 38. 



30 CHURCH OF CHKIST. 

system of which the Papacy is bat the efflorescence. At the same 
time, when once the principle had been enunciated, that Scripture 
is the supreme authority in controversies of faith, the breach 
between the Papal and the Protesting party became irreparable ; 
for it was no longer a contest about this or that doctrine, but about 
the authoritative source of all doctrines : and from this time for- 
ward, Protestantism began to assume the appearance of an inde- 
pendent system of doctrine, in opposition to that of Eome. The 
interior links which connect one truth with another became the 
subject of investigation ; theological statements were so shaped as 
to square with the leading doctrine of the system ; and, one by 
one, the chief topics in controversy assumed, under the guidance 
of Scripture, that scientific form in which they appear in the 
Eeformed confessions. There were not wanting minds fitted for 
this peculiar task. The Lutheran party had early attracted to 
itself men of high literary attainments, and genuine philosophical 
spirit; foremost amongst whom stood Melancthon, the first to 
mould the theology of the Keformation, as Luther was the instru- 
ment of exhibiting its inner spirit. Those living truths which 
Luther felt more vividly than he could expound clearly, it was 
Melancthon's province to state formally, to harmonise, and to de- 
fend. As early as the year 1521, he had given to the world a 
short exposition, according to Protestant views, of the chief heads 
of Christian doctrine, under the title of Loci theologici: it was sub- 
sequently expanded into the fuller, and more complete, system of 
theology which appears under that name in the collected edition 
of his works. From his pen proceeded, a few years afterwards, 
the Confession of Augsburg, and the classical Apology for the Con- 
fession; compositions which were adopted as the symbols of the 
Lutheran Church, and in which Protestantism, for the first time, 
appears, not merely as a protest against the corruptions of Rome, 
which is its negative side, but, as a positive system, possessing an 
organising principle of its own, and not less coherent in its struc- 
ture than the opposite theology of the Council of Trent. The 
Confession of Augsburg may be considered as the basis of all the 
other Protestant symbols. Our Thirty-nine Articles were, as is 
well known, framed after the model which it furnishes, though in 
some points they exhibit a Reformed, rather than a Lutheran, 
type. For the service which Melancthon thus rendered to the Lu- 
theran Protestants, the Reformed Churches of France and Switzer- 
land were indebted to Calvin : in whose celebrated work, Institutes 
of Religion, we possess a masterly treatise on dogmatical theology, 



INTRODUCTION. 31 

tinged, however, with the peculiar views of the great Swiss Re- 
former. This work exercised a wide-spread, and lasting, influence 
wherever the Reformed faith was professed; and can never be 
read without exciting admiration, on account of the comprehen- 
siveness of plan, the clearness of statement, and the generally judi- 
cious treatment of the topics discussed, which it exhibits. 

It will be easily conceived that the gradual consolidation of 
Protestantism, both as a theological system and as a dissident 
Church, could not take place without producing important effects 
on the opposite side. In truth, the Lutheran Reformation gave 
rise, not only to a counter-reformation of a most extensive char- 
acter in the practical system of the Romish Church, but to a fixing 
of those dogmatical foundations of the edifice which had hitherto 
existed as disjecta membra, and had been tacitly assumed rather 
than distinctly propounded* Tridentine Romanism no more 
resembles the popular working of the system in the 16th cen- 
tury, than the Romanism of England is a fair specimen of that 
which prevails in less favoured countries. In one point of view, 
the Council conferred a real and lasting benefit upon the Church, 
while in another it must be regarded as the grand impediment to 
her return to apostolic Christianity: it reformed innumerable 
abuses, and aimed, not without success, at introducing, among 
clergy and laity, a much higher tone of Christian practice than 
had previously prevailed ; but, at the same time, by transforming, 
in avowed opposition to the Protestant statements, doctrinal 
opinions, which had not hitherto received a formal sanction, into 
authoritative decisions of the Church, it placed an insuperable bar- 
rier between the two great divisions of Christendom, and stereo- 
typed, so to speak, the errors of the Church system. 

- But while the Romanism of Trent is as much the product of the 
Reformation as Protestantism itself, the questions concerning the 
Church hold a different place in the two systems, as regards the 
historical formation of each respectively. While in Protestantism 
it is the inward aspect of Christianity, as consisting of certain rela- 
tions between the individual Christian and God, expressed in the 
formula "justification by faith," that pervades the system, and is 
the key to the understanding of it, in Romanism this governing, 
formative, influence belongs to its idea of the Church. Protest- 
antism first seized hold of the doctrine which expresses the 

* The lengthened discussions, the differences of opinion, and the difficulty in framing 
its decrees, which prevailed in the Council of Trent, prove how far the dogmatical elements 
of Romanism were at that time from heing positively fixed.- See Sorpi'fl History, passim. 



32 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

method in which the sinner, viewed as an individual, becomes 
reconciled to God ; and therefrom, as a fixed point, proceeded to 
modify, or reject, the current notions respecting the nature and 
authority of the Christian community. Eomanism, on the con- 
trary, assuming the received doctrines on the subject of the Church 
as a first principle, aimed at giving those connected with the spirit- 
ual life of the individual such a form as should make them har- 
monise with the former. Hence, possibly, it is that the Council of 
Trent has no distinct section upon the Church ; but however this 
may be, it is certain that the views peculiar to Eomanism, on orig- 
inal sin, regeneration, and justification, are, not the antecedents, 
but the consequents of the doctrine which it maintains upon the 
constitution of the Church ; the latter being the organizing princi- 
ple of the whole system. Not only does this appear from a critical 
examination of the Eomish formularies in their present shape, but 
from the historical facts connected with the rise and progress of 
the Papal system. 

The remains of ancient ecclesiastical literature, especially those 
of the Latin Church, teach us that the great corruption of Chris- 
tianity, of which Eomanism is the full development, manifested 
itself, in the first instance, not in the doctrines which relate to the 
spiritual life of the individual, but in those connected with the 
constitution and authority of the Christian society. As it had 
been predicted by St. Paul, the decline from apostolic Christianity 
began with the introduction of two foreign elements — the ascetic 
discipline, and the doctrine of a human priesthood; the one of 
heathen, and the other of Jewish, origin ; and these had taken deep 
root, and thoroughly impregnated the mind of the Church, long 
before any unscriptural views on the subject of justification were 
visible; at least before any such had been authoritatively pro- 
pounded. The enemy sowed his tares stealthily, and with admir- 
able wisdom. The great doctrine of the gospel, so far as the latter 
is a scheme for bringing God and man together, was, for the pre- 
sent, left untouched; but, side by side with it, there were silently 
introduced notions on the nature and offices of the Church, in con- - 
junction with which it never has existed, or can exist, in its orig- 
inal simplicity, and which it must either expel or be expelled by. 
The latter result took place by a slow, but necessary, process. 
Already in the pages of Cyprian, and even Augustin, the effect of 
the Church system upon their apprehension of the truths which 
St. Paul so earnestly preached is very visible ; and yet it is more 
negative than positive, more in the way of omission than of actual 



INTKODUCTION. 33 

misstatement. The doctrine of human merit, in the gross form 
which it assumed in later Romanism, does not appear in their 
writings; but the opposite truth is seldom, if ever, heartily 
announced, still less does it occupy that place in their theology 
which the Apostolic writings assign to it. In the lapse of time, 
as the Church theory approached its maturity, this mere omission 
of Scriptural truth gave place to positively erroneous notions: 
and, under the fostering influence of the Scholastic theology, the 
Tridentine teaching on the subjects of original sin, on justification, 
and on the merit of good works, assumed its present form. We 
may say, then, that in Eomanism the doctrine of the Church holds 
the same place which the doctrine of justification by faith does in 
Protestantism: each constitutes the heart of its own system, each 
is the fundamental principle, with a continual reference to which 
the work of theological reflection and analysis has, on either side, 
proceeded. 

From the foregoing observations it will be seen that the Pro- 
testant, were it his object to expound his own dogmatical system 
in accordance with the actual course of its historical formation, 
would naturally begin by establishing .the doctrine of justification 
by faith ; and from this, as from a fixed position, advance to the 
consideration of the other topics in dispute between himself and 
his opponents, pointing out, as he proceeds, the relation which they 
bear to each other, and to the central truth of the system. Such, 
indeed, is the method commonly pursued by Protestant writers on 
dogmatic theology. Following in the track of the Apostles' Creed, 
they treat, first, of the great objective truths of Christianity, such 
as the nature of the Divine Being and the Person and work of 
Christ; then, of the actual application of redemption to indi- 
viduals, or the doctrines of regeneration and justification ; and, in 
the last place, of the Church, or the community of those who are 
justified, and made children of God by adoption and grace. The 
Romanist, on the contrary, if he would do justice to his cause, 
must, first of all, make good his positions respecting the Church, 
its constitution and its powers; and, from the vantage ground 
thus furnished, proceed to expound the other distinctive doctrines 
of the Tridentine system. This was clearly perceived at tho 
Council of Trent,* and has in general been acted upon by writers 

* "Vincent Lunel, Franciscain, fut d'avis qu'avant que d\'tablir pour fondemens de la 
l'oi 1'Ecriture, et la Tradition, il falloit traiter de l'Eglise, qui est Le fonflement principal 
de tout, puisque c'est d'elle que 1'Ecriture recoitr son autoritf:, scion cette parole si celebro 
de S. Augustin, ' Qu'il ne croiroit point a l'Evangile, s'il n' y otoit oblige par l'autorite" de 
l'Eglise.' " — €arpi, i. 260. 



34 CHUECH OF CHRIST. 

of the Romish communion. It is not without a sense of the dis- 
advantage to the argument thence arising, that, in the following 
pages, issue is joined with the Eomish controversialist upon the 
subject of the Church, before the Protestant doctrine of justifica- 
tion has been expounded, and its connexion with the former topic 
pointed out. — On the other hand, if the object be to select the 
cardinal point of the controversy between Komanists and Pro- 
testants as that which should be first discussed, then both parties 
must agree in assigning that position to the subject before us. 
Not to mention that, in all discussions concerning the application 
of redemption to individuals, the existence of the Church must 
be presupposed, for it is by means of the Church, as an instru- 
ment, that the work of Christ is carried on in the world ; and that, 
under this head of controversy, the essential differences of the two 
systems reach their culminating point, and assume their most 
decided aspect of opposition ; it is, obviously, but reasonable that 
the great question concerning the source of revelation and the 
ultimate authority in matters of faith, should be settled, before an 
attempt is made to determine what is, and what is not, the pure 
doctrine of Christ. But it is plain that this question cannot be 
discussed without a continual reference to the conception which 
each party respectively entertains of the nature and authority of 
the Church, and of its relation to Scripture. In making good his 
doctrine concerning the Church, the Eomanist virtually proves 
all the other dogmas of his system ; and even the Protestant 
cannot satisfactorily set forth the proof of his formal principle 
viz. the supreme authority of Scripture in matters of faith, with- 
out touching upon the characteristics of that spiritual society 
which existed before the New Testament was written, to which 
the Christian Scriptures were addressed, and between which, as 
the "witness and keeper" of the Divine Word and the Word 
itself, there is a divinely established connexion which never can 
be safely dissolved. To this we may add, that it is as embodied 
in a living Church system that Romanism has ever produced the 
greatest impression upon nations, and individuals. On this side 
chiefly it is, that the system of Trent has exhibited its power to 
draw over to itself the unstable, and the ill-informed. In fact, 
if we examine the history of the various cases of conversion to 
Romanism which have occurred amongst ourselves, we shall find 
that, in almost every instance, it was the imposing aspect which 
the Church of Rome presents, as a visibly organised body under 
one visible head, and the pretensions which she puts forward to 



INEODUCTION". 35 

a divine commission to pronounce authoritatively upon questions 
of doctrine, that principally weighed with the converts, and led 
them to take the step which they have taken. These preten- 
sions, on the other hand, are the real impediment in the way of 
a reconciliation between the two great divisions of Christen- 
dom: it is against the claims of the Church of Home, as a 
church, that Protestants must go on protesting, until they are 
abandoned. A Church may be disfigured by serious corruptions 
in doctrine and in practice, but as long as it does not claim for 
itself infallibility, that is, make its very corruptions part and 
parcel of Christianity, there is hope of its being reformed ; and, 
meanwhile, its imperfections may, and indeed ought to be, borne 
with by those bred within its pale. The abuses of the ecclesiastical 
system of the sixteenth century, grievous as they were, would not 
of themselves have justified the Protestants in separating from 
the communion of Eome. But when the claim to infallibility was 
authoritatively put forth, and the plainest practical abuses thereby 
invested with a character of immutability, and even of sanctity, 
no alternative was left to those who had become convinced that 
the practices in question were corruptions but to secede from her 
communion. The same claim, which has not as yet been aban- 
doned, interposes, at this day, an impassable barrier between us 
and Rome. On the whole, then, a comparative view of the two 
systems will most fitly commence with a discussion of their dif- 
ferences on the subject of the Church. 

These preliminary observations upon the historical bearings of 
the subject about to be discussed, conduct us to an important 
inquiry, without some notice of which it would be improper to 
advance further; — viz. What are the authentic sources whence 
we are to derive our knowledge of Romanism and Protestantism, 
respectively ? 

It will be obvious, on a moment's reflection, that Scripture is 
not, directly, one of these sources. Scripture is the common trea- 
sure of all Christians; the common record which both parties 
recognise, and wherein each thinks it discovers the peculiarities 
of its own system. For no Romanist has as yet advanced so far 
as to admit that Scripture is opposed to the doctrines of his Church ; 
at most, he maintains that it is an imperfect, or an obscure, record 
of the Christian faith, and needs the aid of tradition, or develop- 
ment, to supply its deficiencies. Scripture, too, from its structure, 
and from the place which it holds, or ought to hold, in the Church, 
is manifestly unfitted, as it was never intended, to furnish us with 



36 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

dogmatical expositions of the Christian faith, much less of the 
faith of any party in the Church. The Church had her faith 
within, and could have given expression to it, before the New 
Testament was written: — the latter was added, to be a perpetual 
touchstone, or standard, whereby she is to try her faith, and correct 
any deviations which it may exhibit from the spirit of Apostolic 
Christianity. Scripture, therefore, is not a protest against certain 
specific errors, whether Komanist or Protestant, but against all 
forms of error, which may, to the end of time, prevail in the 
Church. The very place of supremacy which the "Word of God 
holds in the Church, unfits it to be the symbol of any party:— it 
presents a record not so much of what the Church does, as of what 
she ought to, believe ; it exhibits the pure pattern of Apostolic 
Christianity, to which all churches should endeavour to conform 
themselves. The Protestant, therefore, will search in vain in 
Scripture for a dogmatical exposition of the points in which he 
differs from the Church of Eome, just as he will in vain search 
there for a categorical expression of his faith, as it is opposed to 
Arian and Socinian errors. Both in the one case and in the other, 
he will feel himself bound to prove from Scripture what he holds 
as matter of faith, but he cannot, as a Protestant or as a Trinita- 
rian, take Scripture immediately, and say, This is an exposition 
of what I believe. It is also to be remembered, that, to claim 
Scripture directly as a record of what we hold in opposition to 
Romanism, is, not only to detract from the sacredness of the in- 
spired writings, but to affirm that we have succeeded in reproduc- 
ing amongst ourselves a perfect representation of Apostolic purity, 
both in doctrine and practice ; an assumption which we are not 
justified in making. To be continually approximating to the idea 
of a Church presented in Scripture is our bounden duty ; but it is 
not permitted us to say that we have actually reached that ideal ; 
for this would be equivalent to making the imperfections under 
which our system may be labouring part of Scripture itself. 
We must carefully limit the sense of the celebrated aphorism, 
" The Bible alone is the religion of Protestants," or we shall pos- 
sibly be led into dangerous error : for it is a dangerous error to 
affiliate our particular creed directly upon Scripture, so as to make 
the latter responsible, not only for every sentiment therein ex- 
pressed but, even for the form of words in which it is expressed. 
If, by the aphorism above-mentioned, be meant, that the Bible is 
with Protestants the ultimate authority in matters of faith, its 
truth is undeniable ; for whatever we hold as Protestants we hold 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

because we believe it can be proved by Holy Scripture : but if the 
meaning intended to be conveyed be, that Scripture is Protestant- 
ism, and Protestantism Scripture, the assertion is not true, and 
what is more, is an unwarrantable assumption. Protestantism, as 
a system of doctrine, may have many defects which need, like the 
errors of Komanism, to be corrected by a reference to Scripture. 
The Inspired Word itself must be jealously guarded from such 
an identification with theological systems, which have been built 
up by the operation of the logical faculty, as would place both on 
the same footing of authority. 

Equally obvious is it, indeed it need hardly be observed, that 
the three oecumenical creeds contribute nothing towards enabling 
us to ascertain the distinctive doctrines of the Eomish, and the 
Reformed, Churches. They, like Scripture, are the common pro- 
perty of both parties, — the expression of their common Christi- 
anity, — the ground upon which they must both unite against the 
common enemy — 'Rationalism, or infidelity. An agreement of 
both parties in the great objective truths of Christianity, as ex- 
pressed in the creeds, must be pre-supposed, if we are to under- 
stand clearly the point of divergence: — otherwise, we shall be 
wasting our time in contending about first principles. Protestants 
may not arrive at their belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures, 
or of the doctrines expressed in the creed, by the same road which 
Romanists take ; but if they do accept the Scriptures as the Word 
of Grod, and the doctrine of the Trinity as part of that Word, it is 
enough : it is comparatively of little consequence how they came 
by their faith. Romish controversialists are constantly forgetting 
this, and asking us, how we prove the inspiration of Scripture, &c. ? 
They might as well go back further, and ask us how we prove the 
existence of a God. There is a certain portion of ground common 
to both parties, to dispute about which is wholly irrelevant to the 
questions on which they are really divided. Moreover, for either 
party to adopt the three creeds as its symbol, is to ignore the 
existence of its opponent. If we choose to forget that the Reformed 
and the Romish Churches are existing realities, and imagine our- 
selves to be living in the 4th century, we may adopt this course ; 
otherwise, it is an illusion, and a dangerous one. The supposition 
upon which it is really based is, that there are no essential differ- 
ences between Romanism and Protestantism, or, in other words, 
that we may reunite ourselves to the Church of Rome, without 
forfeiting our position as a Protestant Church. Nothing can be 
more suicidal than the attempts which have been made in certain 



38 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

quarters to substitute, as the symbol of the English Church, the 
three creeds for the thirty-nine articles ; as if the former comprise 
everything which distinguishes us as a Church. So far forth as 
we are a Christian Church, as distinguished from Socinians, Jews, 
and Mahometans, the ancient creeds are our symbols ; but they 
are not so, so far forth as we are a Keformed Church, for they 
contain no protest against the peculiar errors of Eome. 

Nor, again, are we warranted in regarding the private writings 
of the reformers or their opponents, whether English or foreign, 
as authentic sources of information on the differences of the two 
great sections of Christendom. True it is, that, as helps to ascer- 
taining the real points at issue, the writings of Luther, Melancthon, 
Calvin, and Zuinglius, and of our own reformers, on the one hand / 
— and of Bellarmin, Bossuet, and Moehler, — on the other, are very 
valuable: but it is manifest that no statement of any individual 
writer, however eminent, can in fairness be attributed to the 
Church to which he belongs, unless indeed the latter have for- 
mally adopted it. Had this rule been observed by both parties, 
how much useless controversy might have been avoided! The 
Eomish theologians are careful to discriminate between the unau- 
thorised speculations of their writers, and the formal decrees of 
their Church : let them accord to their opponents the same mea- 
sure of equity which they claim for themselves. If Luther or Cal- 
vin have made some rash assertions, what is that to the reformed 
Churches? those Churches must be judged by their authentic de- 
clarations, and by nothing else. Yet so little has this rule of 
equity been attended to that, in the latest work of any conse- 
quence on the Eomish side of the controversy, that of Moehler, 
the citations by which he attempts to justify his description of 
Protestantism are, for the most part, drawn, not from the accred- 
ited formularies of the reformed Churches, but from the works of 
Luther, Melancthon, and Zuinglius. 

To speak of any individual, such as Luther or Calvin, as being 
the creator of the German, or the Swiss, Protestant Church, is 
wholly to misunderstand the place which the chief reformers 
occupied in the movement of the 16th century. In all great revo- 
lutions of this kind, whether political or religious, a preparatory 
work has been long going on, previous to the actual outbreak : 
passions have been long smouldering, sentiments fermenting in 
the mass, which only awaited some particular circumstance to 
call them forth into practical energy. In the ordinary course of 
things, the office of igniting the train falls to some individual, pro- 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

videntially raised up and specially qualified for this purpose, in 
whom the common sentiment embodies itself, and finds a mouth- 
piece. So it was at the period of the Reformation. For a length 
of time, the Germanic nations had chafed impatiently under the 
Papal yoke, and to religious minds the corruptions of the Church 
had become intolerable. The invention of printing, and the revi- 
val of classical learning, had given a decided impulse to liberty of 
thought. Under such circumstances, when Luther appeared, he 
appeared, not as a mere individual promulgating peculiar doctrines 
of his own, but as the embodiment of the feelings which had long 
pervaded the sounder portion even of the Church itself. If, there- 
fore, it be true that without a Luther the Reformation might not 
have taken place, it is also true that Luther was not the creator of 
the Protestant Church: he was quite as much led by, as he led, 
the spirit of the age. He was merely the appointed instrument of 
bringing matters to a head; a vent for the expression of senti- 
ments which were becoming more and more general, and difficult 
of suppression. Hence it is, that while the works of the principal 
reformers are undoubtedly very valuable, as presenting a view of 
the interior spirit of Protestantism, they can by no means be con- 
sidered authentic sources of information respecting the faith of the 
Protestant Churches. If Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin, were the 
foremost individuals, still they were but individuals, in the work 
of reformation. To illustrate, to explain statements otherwise am- 
biguous, or to supply defects in the authentic formularies, the writ- 
ings of the reformers may properly be applied; but no argument 
can be founded upon them. The same observations of course ap- 
ply to the great writers of the Romish communion. In the works 
of Bellarmin, for example, much light is thrown upon several 
points which are either obscurely treated, or wholly passed over, 
in the symbols of the Romish Church : but the statements of that 
eminent writer are his own, and his Church must not be held 
responsible for all that he advances. 

The question then recurs, Where shall we find Protestantism 
and Romanism authentically set forth ? There remains but one, 
and that indeed the true, source of information upon the subject; 
— viz. the public confessions, or symbols, in which the opposite 
parties have respectively embodied their sentiments. It will be 
evident, from what has been said, that nothing can, in fairness, be 
attributed to either party but what is, either expressly or by fair 
implication, contained in these symbolical documents. "With a 



40 CHURCH OF CHEIST. 

brief mention of the principal of them, both Romanist and Protest- 
ant, these introductory remarks shall be brought to a close. 

The Church of Rome has, strictly speaking, but one document 
of a symbolical character, viz. the Canons and Decrees of the 
Council of Trent. Soon after it became evident that the Protest- 
ants of Germany could not be put down by force, men's minds 
turned to a general council, as the only means left of restoring 
harmony between the two parties. It has already been mentioned 
that, at the beginning of the Reformation, Luther and his follow- 
ers, far from opposing such a measure, appealed from the Pope to 
a council; an appeal, the justice of which was admitted by the 
right-minded members of the Papal party. But, partly owing to 
political obstacles, and partly to the reluctance of the successive 
Popes, from Adrian to Paul III., to take a step which might en- 
danger the Papal authority, the design was not carried into effect 
until the year 1545. In that year the Council was solemnly opened 
at Trent : but, owing to the frequent interruptions which occurred 
in its sittings, it was not brought to a conclusion until A. D. 1563. 
It then received the Papal confirmation, and has ever since formed 
the authoritative exposition of the Romish faith. It was not to be 
expected that the Protestants would consent to abide by the decis- 
ions of a Council, over which the Pope was to preside, and in 
which the Bishops alone were to have the right of voting: and, 
though summoned to Trent, none of their leading theologians re- 
paired to the Council. 

The decisions of the Council relate, partly to the reformation of 
practical abuses, and partly to doctrine. Under the former head, 
many salutary reforms were by it effected, — occasioned, there can 
be no doubt, by the movement on the other side. The doctrinal 
statements of the Council consist of "Decrees," which contain the 
doctrines of the Church positively stated, and "Canons," in which 
the opposite views are anathematised. It is in these latter clauses 
that the real points of difference are chiefly to be found ; the posi- 
tive statements of the Council being, for the most part, moderate 
in their tone. 

But though the Church of Rome possesses but one authoritative 
symbol of faith, there are certain works of the highest authority 
in her communion, which are very nearly, if not quite, symbolical 
in their character. Among these, the first place is due to the 
Catechism of the Council, which appeared in the year 1566, soon 
after the dissolution of that assembly. It had been the intention 
of the prelates there assembled to draw up a popular exposition of 






INTKODUCTION. 41 

Romish doctrine, founded upon the Canons of Trent, to serve as a 
manual for the parochial clergy: but, the Council having been 
dissolved before the design could be carried into effect, it was 
given in charge to three eminent prelates to execute the work, 
which they completed in the year 1566. In a literary point of 
view, this Catechism possesses great excellencies. It is written 
in clear and elegant latinity ; and without being prolix, embraces 
every topic of Christian doctrine. It gained, as it well deserved, 
universal acceptance ; and has ever been regarded as only second 
in authority to the decisions of the Council itself. 

Another document, holding the same place as the Catechism, 
though much inferior in importance, is, the Professio Fidei Tri- 
dentina. It is merely a short epitome of the chief heads of Tri- 
dentine doctrine, cast into the form of a profession of faith ; to be 
subscribed by those who hold cure of souls in the Romish Church. 

In proceeding to enumerate the principal confessions of the 
Protestant Churches, it will not be necessary to enter formally 
into the differences which exist between those of the Lutheran, 
and those of the Reformed, Churches. As against Rome, they all 
agree in certain fundamental particulars. 

Of the Lutheran formularies the principal is the Confession of 
Augsburg, the groundwork of all the other Protestant symbols. It 
was composed by Melancthon, and presented to the diet sitting at 
Augsburg, by the Protestant princes, as the exposition of their 
faith. The Romish theologians prepared a reply, entitled a Con- 
futation of the Confession, which drew from Melancthon a second, 
and much more extended, apologetic statement, entitled, The 
Apology of the Augsburg Confession; a work of the greatest im- 
portance in ascertaining the real points in dispute between the 
Protestant party and their opponents. The third symbolical book 
of the Lutheran Churches is, the Articles of Schmalcald, prepared 
by Luther in the expectation of its being presented at a general 
Council to be held at Mantua ; which, however, never took place. 
Luther's two Catechisms, composed for the use of the laity, close 
the list. 

The Reformed Churches differed from the Lutheran in not pos- 
sessing a common confession recognised by all ; each Church 
framing one for itself, according as it inclined to the views of 
Calvin or Zuinglius, which on some points, especially the sacra- 
ments, were not exactly the same. Of the Reformed Confessions 
the following, arranged (with the exception of the two Catechisms 
placed last) in chronological order, are the most important : — ■ 



42 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

The three Helvetic Confessions. The first of these, commonly 
called the second, appeared at Basle, A. D. 1536. In the year 
1566, the same confession, much enlarged, was given to the world, 
in the name, and with the sanction, of the Swiss Churches, those 
only of Basle and Neufchatel excepted. The third Helvetic Con- 
fession, by some considered the most ancient of all the Protestant 
symbols, was composed by Oswald Myconius, the friend of Zuing- 
lius and (Ecolampadius, A. d. 1529.* 

The Scotch Confession ; the work probably of John Knox. It 
appeared at Edinburgh, A. D. 1560. 

The French Confession (Confessio Gallicand) ; presented by Theo- 
dore Beza, in the name of the French Keformed Churches, to 
Charles IX., A. D. 1561. It was afterwards formally adopted at a 
national Synod, held at Eochelle, 1571.f 

The Thirty-nine Articles of the English Church. 

The Belgic Confession; sanctioned by various Synods, the last 
of which took place in 1619. 

The Polish Confession, which goes by the name of Declaratio 
Thorunensis. It was drawn up in 1645, with the view of effecting 
a reconciliation between the Komish, Lutheran, and Eeformed 
Churches of Poland ; and is perhaps, of all the Protestant confes- 
sions, the most carefully worded and instructive. 

The Heidelberg Catechism : composed by command of the Elector 
Palatine, Frederic III., A. D. 1563. It was received by the Ke- 
formed Churches with universal approbation, and in many of them 
was used as a manual for schools. 

The Genevan Catechism ; drawn up by Calvin, A. D. 1545. Like 
the former, it gained a place in the Swiss Churches as a manual 
of instruction for youth. 

* See Augusti's " Corpus Lib. Symb. Eccles. Ref." p. 628. 
t lb. p. 629. 



BOOK L 
THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH 



PART I. 

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 



CHAPTER I. 

DECLARATIONS OF THE ROMISH AND PROTESTANT FORMULARIES. 

In this first chapter, such portions of the Romish and Protestant 
formularies, whether formal definitions or indirect statements, as 
may enable us to collect what the idea, or conception, of the 
Church is which each party respectively frames to itself, shall be 
laid, at some length, before the reader, whose indulgence is craved 
while this irksome, but necessary, task is gone through. The 
clauses in italics are those in which the point of divergency 
between the two parties is most prominently expressed. 

The Council of Trent, — acting perhaps on the suggestion of 
some of the theologians present at it, viz. that the authority of the 
Church should be treated as a ruled point,* — observes a compara- 
tive silence upon the article of the Church ; at least, presents us with 



* "D'autres tenant pour certain ct incontestable que par l'Eglise il falloit entendro 1'ordre 
ecclcsiastique, et surtout le concile, et le Pape qui en est le chef, disoient que l'autoritc do 
l'Eglise se devoit tenir pour decidee, et que d'en traiter a present, ce seroit donner lieu de 
oroire, ou qu'il y avoit sur ccla des difficultes, ou au moins que c'etoit one vc'rite nouvclle- 
ment eclaircie, et qui n'avoit pas toujours etc crue dans l'Eglise chretienne." (Sarpi, torn. i. 
p. 261.) This is the reason why in the discussions of the great systematic writers of the 
middle ages, the schoolmen for example, the Church, as such, has no distinct place assigned 
it. Living under the system, and without an antagonist Protestantism, it never occurred 
to them to be necessary to explain, or defend it. 

43 



44 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

no distinct statements or definitions upon the subject. But the 
Catechism of the Council supplies the deficiency, and gives us a 
full and accurate exposition of the Eomish theory. Commenting 
on the article of the Apostles' Creed, "The Holy Catholic Church," 
it observes :* — ■ " That the subject is, for a twofold reason, an im- 
portant one ; first, because the prophets, as Augustin remarks, speak 
more fully and clearly concerning the Church than concerning Christ 
himself: and, secondly, because a due understanding of this article is 
the best safeguard against heresy ; heresy being, not error merely, 
but error obstinately persisted in, in defiance of the decisions of 
the Church." After various observations upon the meaning of the 
word ecclesia, the distinction between it and the synagogue, and 
the figures "full of mystery," by which it is described in Scripture, 
the Catechism proceeds as follows :f — "The Church, according to 
St. Augustin's definition, is the body of the faithful, dispersed 
throughout the world; a definition, however, which is hardly 
comprehensive enough, inasmuch as the Church consists of two 
parts; the one triumphant, consisting of the spirits of the departed 
faithful, the other militant, comprehending the faithful upon earth : 
which, however, together, constitute one and the same Church. 
In the Church militant two hinds of men are comprised, the good and 
the evil; for though they differ in their life and conversation, both 
are believers (fideles), as professing the same faith, and partaking of 
the same sacraments. $ The good may be discerned, though not with 
unerring certainty, by their fruits : hence (it is remarked in a note) 
our Lord, when he commands us to 'hear the Church,' could not 
have meant that part of it which consists of the good; for since 
this part cannot be certainly ascertained, we should, were this 
his meaning, be at a loss to know to whose judgment we must 
have recourse. The Church, therefore, comprehends both good 
and bad, agreeably to what Scripture says, ' There is one body and 
oneSpirit.'§ With respect to the visibility of the Church, it is 'like 
a city set upon a hill, which cannot be hid.' For since it rightfully 
claims the obedience of all men, it must, of necessity, be a conspicuous 



* Catechism. Cone. Trid. c. x. s. 1. Accurate editions, both of this work, and of the 
decrees of the Council, will be found in Streitwolf 's Lib. Symbol. Eccles. Cathol. 

t s. 8. 

t"Jam in ecclesia militante duo sunt hominum genera, bonorum et improborum. Et 
iinprobi quidem eorundem sacramentorum participes, eandem quoque quani boni fidein 
profitentur, vita ac moribus dissimiles." (s. 10.) 

I The reader will observe the curious turn which the Catechism gives to this passage ; as 
if it was St. Paul's meaning that the unity of the Church consists in her comprehending 
all sorts of men within her pale. 



DECLARATIONS OF FORMULARIES. 45 

object, and easily known"* With, a view no doubt of obviating 
objections to this last statement, the Catechism again reminds us, 
that both good and evil are comprehended in the Church ; according 
to those parables of our Lord which represent it as a net contain- 
ing good and bad fish, and as a threshing floor in which chaff and 
wheat are found mixed together. It is admitted, however, that 
although good and evil are equally members of the Church, a 
difference exists between them, analogous to that which exists be- 
tween the living and the dead members of the human body. (s. 11.) 

From all this it follows that three classes of persons only are 
excluded from the Church ; unbelievers {%. e. heathens, or infidels), 
separatists, whether they be heretics or schismatics, and the ex- 
communicated.f With respect to the second class, however (here- 
tics and schismatics), we are told that, although not in the Church, 
they are still under its jurisdiction : in consequence of which they 
may be brought to judgment, anathematised, and punished. With 
the exception of these three classes, all, however wicked they may 
be, must be held to be in the Church :\ and it is to be especially 
inculcated upon the faithful that the bishops of the Church, should 
they happen to lead vicious lives, forfeit thereby none of their 
spiritual prerogatives. 

These statements will receive illustration from what the Cate- 
chism says concerning the properties or affections which belong to 
the Church. These, as expressed in the Apostles' Creed, are 
three: — Unity, Sanctity, and Catholicity: to which the ISTicene 
Creed adds another, Apostolicity. " The Church is one, because, 
as the Apostle says, there is ' one faith, one Lord, one baptism ;' 
but, more especially, because it has one invisible Euler, Christ, 
and one visible, viz. the occupant, for the time being, of the chair 
of St. Peter at Kome.g That this visible head of the Church is 
necessary to preserve its unity is affirmed by all the Fathers. (Je- 
rome, Cyprian, Optatus, and Basil, are especially referred to as 

* " Nam cum ill! ab omnibus parendum sit, cognoscatur necesse est." (s. 11.) 

t " Ex quo fit, ut tria tantummodo hominum genera ab ea excludantur, primo infideles, 
deinde haeretici et schismatici, et postremo excommunicati." (s. 12.) 

+ "Decaeteris autem, quamvis improbis et sceleratis hominibus, adhuc eos in ecclesia 
perseverare dubitandum non est." (s. 12.) 

§ The language of the Catechism in this place is rather obscure : " Unus est enim ejus 
rector, et gubernator, invisibilis quidem Christus, — visibilis autem is qui Romanam cathe- 
dram Petri Apostolorum principis legitimus successor tenet." (ss. 14, 15.) The idea appa- 
rently intended to be conveyed is, that there is one head and governor (rather government), 
consisting of two persons — Christ and the Pope; the latter being the visible organ of the 
unseen Saviour, and his vicar upon earth. And such in truth, is the Romish doctrine of 
the Papacy. 



46 CHUECH OF CHRIST. 

maintaining this opinion). Should it be objected that one head, 
Christ, is sufficient for one body, the reply is, that a visible Church 
must have a visible Head; that our Lord, therefore, while himself 
governing it inwardly (invisibly) by His Spirit, rules it visibly by 
His appointed Yicar upon earth ; in the first instance Peter, and 
afterwards the successor, for the time being, of St. Peter in the 
Komish See. 

" The next property is Sanctity. The Church is called holy for 
the reasons following: — First, because it is dedicated to God; so 
the vessels of the tabernacle, though things inanimate, were called holy, 
as being set apart to God's service. It need not be matter of surprise 
to any one that the Church, which, as has been remarked, com- 
prises in itself the evil as well as. the good, should, notwithstand- 
ing, be termed holy ; for to that appellation all are entitled tuho pro- 
fess to believe in Christ, and have received the sacrament of baptism, 
although in many things they offend, and act not fully up to their 
profession* Thus St. Paul calls the Corinthians saints and sanc- 
tified ; yet we know that in that Church there were many of whom 
he was compelled to say that they were ' carnal.' Secondly, be- 
cause the Church, consisting, as aforesaid, of good and evil mixed 
together, is united to Christ, the source of all holiness, as the 
human body is to the head : and Augustin well remarks, ' If all 
who believe, and have been baptized into Christ, have put on 
Christ, and thus been made members of His body, for such persons 
to affirm of themselves that they are not holy, were to do injury 
to the Head Himself, of whom they are members.' Thirdly, be- 
cause to the Church alone has been committed the administration 
of the sacraments, through which, as efficient instruments of divine 
grace, God makes us holy ; so that whosoever is truly sanctified, 
must be found within the pale of the Church. 

"The Church is Catholic or universal, because it is diffused 
throughout the world, embracing within its pale men of all nations 
and conditions; and also because it comprehends all who have 
believed, from the beginning, and all who shall believe hencefor- 
ward, to the end of time. (s. 17.) 

" The last of the four attributes is, Apostolicity. The Church 

* It should be carefully borne in mind that the Catechism does not here mean merely 
tbat even true Christians are not without sin, and in many things come short: that is con- 
fessed on all sides : but that men wholly unrenewed in heart, form, in conjunction with the 
good, ono holy Church. The persons who " in multis offendunt et quoo polliciti sunt non 
prsestant" (s. 17.) are not, in the view of the authors of the Catechism, sincere but imper- 
fect Christians, but men destitute of the Spirit of God, and whose lives may be openly 
vicious. 



DECLARATIONS OF FORMULARIES. 47 

is termed Apostolic, both, because it derives its doctrines from, the 
Apostles, whereby it is enabled to convict heretics of error, and 
because it is governed by an Apostolic ministry, which is the 
organ of the Spirit of God. Being thus divinely guided, this 
Church alone (i e. the Komish) is infallible in matters of faith and 
practice ; and all other Churches, falsely so called, are under the 
dominion of Satan, and must, of necessity, be affected with the 
most pernicious errors, (s. 18.) 

" The two figures by which, in the Old Testament, the Church 
was prefigured, are, Noah's Ark, and the city of Jerusalem : both 
of them expressing the exclusiveness of the one true Church : for 
out of the Ark there was no safety from the flood, and at Jerusalem 
alone might sacrifice be lawfully offered." (s. 19.) 

If it be asked why the Church, being, according to these state- 
ments, so manifestly an object of sight, should form an article of the 
creed, which is generally understood to refer to things not seen, or 
objects of faith, the answer is, that " although the Church, so far as 
it is a community of men consecrated to Christ, is a visible body, 
yet the mysteries (i. e. the sacraments) therein celebrated, belong to 
the sphere of faith : it is by faith that we understand that to the 
Church, the keys of heaven, and the powers of remitting sin, and 
of consecrating the body of Christ, have been committed, (s. 21.) 

"The explanatory clause appended to this Article in the Apos- 
tles' Creed, 'the communion of Saints,' is chiefly to be understood 
as expressing that participation which all the members of the 
Church have in her sacraments, and other privileges. There is, 
however, another sense which it may bear, viz. that whatever holy 
works are done by any one Christian, appertain and are profitable 
to all : as in the human body, the image so often used in Scripture 
to explain the constitution of the Church, ' if one member suffer, 
all the members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured, all 
the members rejoice with it.' " (s. 24.) 

Lastly, it is declared, that " they who are in mortal sin, though 
deprived thereby of the spiritual benefit which is the peculiar 
privilege of the pious Christian, are still members of the body of 
Christ; and, as such, possess privileges from which they are 
excluded who are altogether cut off from the Church (i. e. heretics 
and schismatics)."* 

* " Membra vero mortua, niinirum homines scelcribus obstricti, et a Dei gratia alicnati, 
hoc quidera bono non privantur ut hujus corporis (sc. ccclcsiac) membra esse desinant: sed 
cum sint mortua, fructum spiritualem, qui ad justos et pios homines pervenit, non percipi- 
unt." (e. 27. 



48 CHURCH OP CHRIST. 

Such, is a brief analysis of the section of the Eomish Catechism 
which treats of the Church. In proceeding to place side by side 
with these statements those of the Protestant formularies, we turn, 
in the first place, to those of the Lutheran Church. In the sev- 
enth Article of the Confession of Augsburg, the Church is defined 
to be, "a congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is purely 
preached, and the sacraments rightly administered;" a definition 
which forms the basis of our own nineteenth Article. Both the 
former and the latter labour under the same ambiguity, or, to 
speak plainly, confusion, of senses in which the word " Church" is 
used. "We teach," say the Lutheran Keformers, "that one holy 
Church shall ever be in the world : but the Church is a congrega- 
tion of Saints," &c; it is evident that here there is an unconscious 
transition from the " one holy Church" to particular Churches ; for 
the former cannot, especially by Protestants, be described as " a 
congregation of Saints," or, as our Article has it, "of faithful men," 
" where the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments 
duly administered." This latter part of the definition plainly 
applies only to local congregations, or the visible Churches which 
are composed of such congregations : as indeed is, in our Article, 
intimated by the addition of the qualifying epithet "visible," 
which does not appear in the Lutheran confession.* In the Eng- 
lish version of our Article, however, there remains a slight inac- 
curacy, which somewhat perplexes the meaning of it, and, indeed, 
might, if the scope of the whole were not manifest, be productive 
of serious doctrinal error. In that version, the Article commences 
with the words, "The visible Church," which, taken literally, im- 
ply that there is one visible Church, and only one, in the world : 
a doctrine which is directly opposed to Scripture, and against 
which it was one of the professed purposes of our Articles to place 
on record a protest. There can be little doubt that the true render- 
ing of the Latin, "Ecclesia visibilis," is not "The," but "A," 
"visible Church:" and this accords much better with the conclud- 

* The language of the Saxon confession, drawn up by Melancthon, A. d. 1551, with the 
intention of being presented to the Council of Trent, and which is styled, " Repetitio Con- 
fessionis Augustinse," is, upon the point under discussion, more accurate than that of the 
latter. " Dicimus igitur ccclesiam visibilem, in hac vita ccetuui esse amplectentium evang- 
elium Christ! et recte utentium sacramentis ; in quo Deus per ministerium evangelii est effi- 
cax, et multos ad vitam aeternam regenerat; in quo ccotu tamen multi sunt non sancti, Ac. 
Diximus autem in descriptione ecclesiee multos in hac visibili ecclesia esse non Banctos, qui 
tamen externa profcssione voram doctrinam amplectuntur. Improbamus et colluviem Ana- 
baptisticam, quae fingit ecclesiam visibilem in qua omnes sint sancti j ac fatemur de ecclesia 
visibili in hac vita sentiendum esse sicut inquit Dominus, Matt. 13, ' Simile est regnum 
coelorum sagenee,' <fcc." — Conf. Sax. c. 6. 



DECLARATIONS OF FORMULARIES. 49 

ing part of the Article, which makes mention only of particnlar 
Churches, such as the "Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and 
Antioch," or "the Church of Kome."* 

A visible Church then is, according to its definition, "a congre- 
gation of Saints ;'•' and what we are to understand by the latter ex- 
pression is explained in the next Article, the object of which is to 
obviate an objection which might be urged against the statements 
of the preceding one. " Although," the Augsburg Confession pro- 
ceeds, " the" (a) " Church is properly a society of Saints, that is 
true believers (vere credendium), yet since in this life many hypo- 
crites and evil men are mixed up with them, it must be remem- 
bered that the Sacraments and the Word lose not their efficacy by 
being administered and preached by the wicked."-)* The " Saints" 
then, of which a Church, according to the idea which Protestantism 
frames of it, is composed, are real ones; they are ''faithful men" 
(fideles), and the word, "faith," has in Protestantism a very differ- 
ent signification from that which it bears in Eomanism ; \ they are 
not only outwardly consecrated to God, but inwardly sanctified by 
His Spirit. 

The Articles of Schmalcald, composed by Luther in anticipa- 
tion of a conference to be held at that place between the Eomish 
and the Protestant theologians, which, however, did not take place, 
return "thanks to God, that, in these times, even a boy of seven 
years of age can tell what the Church consists of; viz. believers, 
holy persons, Christ's sheep, who hear the voice of their shepherd. 
For so do children declare their faith : — ' I believe in the Holy 
Catholic Church.' This holiness consists, not in outward things, 
but in (the possession of) the Word of God, and true faith."§ 

The smaller Catechism of Luther teaches the catechumen to pro- 
fess, " that he can by no means come to the knowledge of Christ 
by the unaided strength of his own reason ; that it was the Holy 
Spirit who called him through the Gospel, enlightened him with 

* The same remark has heenmade by Archbishop Whately, Kingdom of Christ, p. 150. i 
t Conf. Aug. art. 3. 

♦ Unless the reader is careful to remember this, he will constantly be in danger of attribut- 
ing to the statements of the Romish formularies a meaning which they do not really boar. 
In those formularies a "fidelis" means one who professes the Christian faith, whatever be 
his inward state, even though he be living in mortal sin, or be a concealed atheist : in the 
language of Protestantism, the same word signifies one who exercises lively trust in Christ, 
which cannot exist without a change of heart. 

2"Haec sanctitas non consistit in amiculo linteo, insigni verticali, veste talari, et aliis 
ipsorum ceremoniis, contra sacram scripturam excogitatis, sed in verbo Dei et vera fido." — 
Art. Smal. art. 12. 



50 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

His gifts, and now sanctifies, and preserves him in the faith, in 
like manner as He calls, and sanctifies, the whole Church npon 
earth:"* and the larger Catechism, expounding the third great 
division of the Apostles' Creed, declares that : — " The Holy Spirit 
carries on His work of sanctification through the instrumentality 
of 'the Communion of Saints,' or the Christian Church. That is; — 
first of all, the Holy Spirit transplants us into that Holy Society, 
the Church, through which, as an instrument, He teaches us, and 
leads us to Christ. For neither could I, or thou, have known any 
thing of Christ, or believed upon Him, unless, through the preach- 
ing of the Gospel, the help of the Holy Spirit had been freely offered 
us. Where the doctrine of Christ is not taught, there the Holy 
Spirit, whose office it is to constitute the Church, and gather men 
into it, does not work.f The Christian Church is termed a ' Com- 
munion of Saints,' for in fact they are equivalent expressions ; the 
word 'ecclesia' signifying a congregation of 'the called.' The 
clause ' Communion of Saints? was added, in order to explain what the 
Christian Church is" (that is, in its essence, or according to its 
idea) ; " viz. a society, or fellowship, to which none but holy persons 
lelong."\ " The sum of what we here profess to believe is there- 
fore this: — 'I believe, that there is upon earth a certain com- 
munity of Saints, composed solely of holy persons, under one Head, 
collected together by the Spirit ; of one faith, and one mind, en- 
dowed with manifold gifts, but united in love, and without sects 
or divisions. Of these I believe that I am one, having fellowship 
with them in the spiritual blessings which they enjoy; united to 
them in one hodj by means of the Word of God, which I have 
heard, and do now hear ; which hearing of the Word is the first 
step towards entering this community."§ 

* Cat. Min. cap. 2. art. 3. 

t Cat. Maj. part II. art. iii. ss. 30. 34. 39. 40. 42. 

t "Nequc aliam ob rem quam interpretandi gratia priori adjecta est, qua quispiam haud 
dubie exponere voluit quid Christianorum esset ecclesia." It is worthy of notice, that both 
the Romish and the Protestant formularies regard the clause, " The Communion of Saints," 
as being simply an explanation, subsequently added, of the preceding Article, " I believe 
in the Holy Catholic Church;" and not as a distinct Article of faith. And this doubtless 
is the true light in which it is to be regarded. For what otherwise are we to understand by 
the clause? "The fellowship," says Pearson, "which the saints maintain with God, with 
each other, and with happy spirits." But this is already expressed, implicitly, in the Ar- 
ticle on the Church ; for Church membership is, in fact, such fellowship. The clause, no 
doubt, was added, to explain, as Luther observes, what the Church is ; and should be read 
with the preceding, as one Article. 

§ " Credo in terris esse quandam sanctorum congregatiunculam et communionem ex mtrt 
tanctis hominibut coactam, sub uno capite Christo, per Spiritum Sanctum convocatam." 



DECLARATION OF FORMULARIES. 51 

If the Lutheran Confessions labour under a want of clearness 
and precision of statement, the defect is, in some measure, supplied 
b y those of the Reformed Churches : which, while presenting, in 
all points, a substantial coincidence of sentiment,* are fuller, and 
more discriminating, in their statements than the former : besides 
their own intrinsic value therefore, they serve to clear up what is 
obscure or ambiguous in the expressions of Luther and Melancthon. 
The following are the declarations of some of the principal of these 
Confessions. The Helvetic Confession of 1566, which may be 
regarded as the symbol of the Swiss Churches, observesf that, 
"Since God from the beginning would have men to be saved by 
coming to the knowledge of the truth, there must always have 
been, there is now, and ever shall be, a Church; that is, a com- 
munity of believers, or saints, gathered out of the world; whose 
distinction it is to know, and to worship, through the Word and 
by the Spirit, the true God in Christ our Saviour, and by faith to 
participate in all the blessings freely offered \o us through Christ. 
These are all citizens of one polity, subjects of the same Lord 
under the same laws, and recipients of the same spiritual blessings, 
It is concerning these that the Article of the Creed, 'I believe in the Holy 
Catholic Church, is to be understood. 

"Since there is, in relation to this community, but one God, one 
Mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus, one Shepherd of the 
whole flock, one Head of the body, one Spirit, one faith, kc, there 
can be but one Church: which, moreover, we call ''Catholic,' be- 
cause it is diffused throughout the world. The Church indeed 
may be viewed under the twofold aspect of triumphant and 
militant ; but these terms merely denote different conditions of the 
members of the same Church. 

"The Church militant upon earth has always existed under the form 
of many particular Churclies, which, however, are all connected with 
each other by their common relation to the one Catholic Church. % The 
latter is termed in Scripture the house of the living God, built of 
living and spiritual stones, upon the rock (Christ). Hence it is 

* " On tho fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth, Articles," (of the Augsburg Confession) " there 
is no difference of opinion between the two parties." — Colloquium Lipsiacum, s. 12. This 
was a conference held at Leipsic, A. D. 1681, between the theologians of the Lutheran and 
Reformed Churches, with the view of ascertaining how far they were agreed. — Augusti, 
Corp. Lib. Symb. Ac p. 386. 

t De Cathol. Eccles. cap. 17. 

J"Et militans in terris ecclesia semper plurimas habuit particulars ecclesias, qu» 
tamen omnes ad unitatem Catholic® ecclesia rcferuntur." — De Cathol. Ecolea. cap. 17. 



not, 



52 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

called 'the pillar and ground of the truth;' the bride of Christ; 
and the body of which He is the Head. 

" The head is that part of the body which governs the whole, 
and from which life, and power to increase, are derived into the 
members. There can be but one head' of the body; and there must be 
a congruity between the two. Hence the Church can have no other head 
than Christ; a spiritual body admits of none but a spiritual Head. 
We disapprove therefore of the doctrine of Rome, that the Pope 
is visible Head of the universal Church, and the Vicar of Christ 
upon earth. For we affirm that Christ Himself discharges in His 
Church all the offices of a Priest, and Pastor ; and therefore needs no 
Vicar: a Vicar exists where the principal is absent; but Christ is 
present, the source of all spiritual life and grace.* 

" As we acknowledge no other head of the Church than Christ, 
so we do not at once admit the claim of every (particular) Church 
to be a true Church ; but we say, that that is a true Church in which 
are found the notes of a true Church, especially the pure preach- 
ing of the Word. We condemn those churches as corrupt which 
are not, in this respect, what they ought to be, however much they 
may boast of their succession of bishops, of their unity, and of their 
antiquity. 

/ " Communion with the true Church of Christ we account of so 
much importance, that we deem it impossible for any one to en- 
hoy the favour of Grod who separates himself from it. It may, 
however, happen that some, without any fault of their own, shall 
be unable to participate in the Sacraments ; such persons we do 
not exclude from the communion of the Church. 

" The (true) Church may be, and has been, so reduced in num- 
bers as to appear almost extinct ; as in the times of Elijah and 
others ; whence it may be termed an invisible Church : not that the 
persons who compose it are invisible, but because, being known unto God 
alone, it often escapes the observation of men. 

"Not all who are nominally in the Church, are true and lively 
members thereof; for there are in it many hypocrites, who out- 
wardly hear the Word, and partake of the Sacraments, while, in- 
wardly, they are destitute of the Spirit. As long, however, as they 
put on the appearance of piety, though they are not of the Church, 

* " Unicum item est corporis caput, et cum corpore habet congruentiam. Ergo ecclesia 
non potest ullum aliud habere capu^ quam Christum. Nam ut ecclesia est corpus spirituale, 

ita caput habcat sibi congruens spirituale utique oportet. Docemus Christum nullo 

indigere vicario, qui absentia est Christus voro praesens est ecclesia), et caput vivificum." 
-Conf. Hel. 1 ma. c. 17. 



DECLARATION OF FORMULARIES. 53 

they are counted to belong to it,* just as traitors, before they are 
detected, enjoy the name of citizens : hence our Lord compares 
the Church to a net containing both good and bad fishes, and to a 
field in which tares and wheat grow side by side. 

"The unity of the Church consists, not in the sameness of ex 
ternal rites and ceremonies, but rather in the truth and unity of the 
Catholic faith. The Catholic faith is delivered to us not in human 
writings, but in Holy Scripture; and is summed up in the Apos- 
tles' Creed. The pure doctrine of the Gospel, and the ordinances 
expressly appointed by Christ himself; these are the constituent 
elements of the true [ Unity of the Church.' " 

The Scotch Confession, as might be expected, assigns, in its 
statements on the Church, a prominent place to the doctrine of 
election. It defines the Church to be "a society of the elect, of 
all ages and countries, both Jews and Gentiles ; this is the Catholic, 
or universal Church. Those who are members of it worship God 
in Christ, and enjoy fellowship with Him through the Spirit. This 
Church is invisible, known only to God, who alone knows who are His; 
and comprehends both the departed in the Lord, and the elect 
upon earth."f 

The_Be2gic_Confession has nothing upon the subject particularly 
deserving of notice. " The Catholic Church is the community of 
all true believers, viz. those who hope in Christ alone for salva- 
tion, and are sanctified by His Spirit. It is not attached to any 
one place, or limited to particular persons, the members of it 
being dispersed throughout the world." The notes of a true 
Church it declares to be "the pure preaching of the Word, the 
right administration of the Sacraments, and the exercise of disci- 
pline.'^ 

More to the point are the statements of the Tetrapolitan Confes- 
sion, supposed to be the composition of Bucer. After defining the 
Church to be "the community of those who believe upon Christ," 
among whom, however, "false professors will ever be found," it 
proceeds thus: — "Whereas the Church is called the bride of 
Christ, Mount Sion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jeru- 
salem, the Church of the first-born, &c. ; it must be remembered 
that these sublime appellations belong only to those who really 
believe in Christ, and are the true Sons of God. Over these since 
the Saviour reigns in spirit and in truth, they are properly His 

* "Et tamen, dum hi simulant pietatem, licet ex ecclesia non Bint, numerantur tamen in 
eccleeia." 

t Conf. Scot Art. 16. % Conf. Belg. ss. 27. 29. 



54 CHUKCHOFCHEIST. 

Church, the communion, or society, of saints, which, in the Apos- 
tles' Creed, the Church is declared to be. From this His Church, 
Christ is never absent ; but by His spirit sanctifies it, that He may 
present it to Himself without spot or wrinkle. Although that which 
makes this community to he the Church, (that is, which constitutes its 
essence) viz. faith in Christ, is not visible, yet the community itself 
is not (absolutely) invisible, but can be known by its fruits;* of 
these fruits the principal are an undaunted confession of the truth, 
sincere and universal love, and a willingness to leave all things for 
Christ's sake; which, wherever the Gospel is preached, and the 
Sacraments administered, will, to a greater or less extent, be 
manifested."! 

Of all the Protestant confessions, however, that of the Polish 
Churches is, as on other points, so on the subject of the Church, 
the most accurate and comprehensive. To any one wishing to 
gain, without the expenditure of much time or labour,- a clear 
view of the differences between Eomanists and Protestants, this 
Confession, which appears in the collections under the title of 
"Declaratio Thoruniensis," may be recommended as sufficient of 
itself for this purpose. "There are," it declares, "particular 
Churches, and the Church universal. The true universal Church 
is the community of all believers, dispersed throughout the wo rld, 
who are, and remain, one Catholic Church, so long as they are 
united by subjection to one Head, Christ, by the indwelling of one 
spirit, and the profession of the same faith ; and this, though they be 
not associated in one common external polity, but, as regards external 
fellowship, and ecclesiastical regimen, be not in communion with each 
other.% Particular Churches are societies of Christians, who, 
besides being united by the internal bond of the spirit, are 
under the same external polity. With respect to these, it is to be 
observed, that, although they alone are true and living members 
of the Church who are united to Christ and to Christ's body, not 
only externally but internally, yet, since the spiritual fellowship 
of Christians is a thing invisible, all who remain in visible com- 
munion with the Church are, in the judgment of charity, to be 

* "Hsec, quanquam id, unde habet quod vere ecclesia Christi sit, nempe fides in Chris- 
tum, videri nequeat, ipsa videri tamen, planeque ex fructibus cognosci potest." — Conf. 
Tetrap. c. 15. 

t Conf. Tetrap. c. 15. 

X " Quamvis nullo communi oxterno in terris regimire socientur, aut etiam sociari possint, 
sed in regionibus et regnis, aut rebuspublicis disjunctissimis, vel etiam hostilibus disperei, 
et quoad externam societatem, aut ecclesiasticum regimen, plane disjuncti sint." — Declar, 
Thorun. s. 7. 



DECLARATIONS OF FORMULARIES. 55 

esteemed members thereof, although many of them may, in the 
sight of God, be hypocrites. A true particular Church, is distin 
guished from a false one by the profession of the true faith, the 
unmutilated administrations of thj^ Sacraments, and the exercise 
of discipline ; all other notes are accidental and subordinate. Among 
visible Churches, however, there may be different degrees of 
purity ; and a Church is not at once to be deemed unworthy of 
that title, because it is affected with some errors. Provided always 
that these errors do not affect the foundations of saving faith, and 
that the society maintains a brotherly communion with other 
Churches : should, however, any community teach doctrines sub- 
versive of the faith, and pertinaciously separate itself from other 
Churches holding the foundation, it can no longer lay claim to the 
title of a true Church. 

" While we hold that it is impossible for the universal Church 
to fall away from the faith, or from the worship of Christ, we 
deny that to any particular Church the privilege has been granted 
by Christ never to err in matters of faith, or in the ordering of 
points connected with divine worship. 

"As regards ecclesiastical polity, we hold that it is strictly 
monarchical as far as the relation between Christ and the universal 
Church is concerned : of particular Churches we believe the regi- 
men, as established by Christ, to be aristocratical ; yet so as that 
we refuse not to the bishops, or superintendents, a certain superior- 
ity as compared with the rest of the presbyters. But we deny 
that there exists any jure divino visible Head of the whole Church, 
to whom all, both Churches and individuals, must render obe- 
dience, on pain of being excluded from the covenant of grace."* 

Our own formularies, aiming as they do at brevity of statement, 
leave the Nineteenth Article, already alluded to, unexplained. 
Under these circumstances, it may be proper to adduce, as a fit 
conclusion to the foregoing extracts, the following passage from 
yr pweirs C atechisim which, like Jewell's Apology, may be con- 
sidered as of semi-symbolical authority. 

"M. Let me hear what thou hast to say concerning the holy 
Catholic Church. 

"A. Before the foundation of the world, God decreed to estab- 
lish for himself a holy Society, which the Apostles called ' eccle- 
sia,' or a congregation. Into this society, God has collected a vast 
multitude of persons, who all obey Christ as their king, and con- 

* Declar. Thorun. s. 7. 






56 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

fide themselves to his care and protection. To it they properly 
belong who truly fear God, walk in holiness, and have a sure hope 
of eternal life. As many as remain steadfast in this faith were 
predestinated thereto before the foundation of the world ; whereof 
the earnest of the Spirit in their hearts is a sure pledge. 

" M. Give me then a definition of the Church. 

"A. The Church is the universal society of all the faithful whom 
God predestinated from eternity to everlasting life, through Christ, 

"M. Why dost thou call the Church holy? 

"A. In order to distinguish it from the congregation of the 
wicked. For those whom God hath chosen he renews to holiness 
of life. 

"M. Is faith the only way of apprehending the Church? (In 
other words, Is it absolutely invisible ?) 

"A. Here, indeed, in the Creed, the Article relates properly to 
that community which God, by his secret election, has brought 
into a state of adoption towards himself: which Church can neither 
be seen with the eyes, nor always discerned by visible signs* There 
is, however, also a visible Church of God, the notes of which he 
has ever declared to us. A visible Church is nothing but a cer- 
tain society of persons, wherever they may be, who profess the 
pure doctrine of Christ, and celebrate the Sacraments as the Word 
of God directs. These are the indispensable notes of a Church : 
but, if the Church be in a healthy condition, it will also exhibit 
the exercise of discipline. 

" M. Are not, then, all the members of this visible Church 
elected to life eternal ? 

" A. Many belong to it who are anything but true members of 
the Church. Nevertheless, because, wherever the Word of God is 
purely preached, and the Sacrainents rightly administered, there will 
in that place be found some destined to salvation through Christ, on this 
account we call the whole of the society a Church of God; for Christ 
has promised that where even two or three are gathered together 
in his name, he will be in the midst of them."f 

It will be observed that this Catechism, like the Scotch Confes- 
sion, strongly insists upon the divine election as the ultimate 

* This question and answer are taken nearly word for word from the Genevan Catechism, 
composed by Calvin. " M. Potestne autem haec ecclesia aliter cognosci quam cum fide credi- 
tor ? P. Est quidem et visibiliz Dei ecclesia, quam nobis certis indiciis notisque dcscripsit : 
sed hie proprie de eorum congregatione agitur, quos arcana sua electione adoptavit in salu- 
tem. Ea autem nee cernitur perpctuo oculis, nee signis dignoscitur." — Cat. Gen. in Eccl. 

t Quarta Pars. Symb. de Eccles. 



DECLARATIONS OF FORMULARIES. 57 

ground of the Church, while most of the other formularies content 
themselves with declaring what it is (in its idea), when actually in 
existence, without entering into the question of the divine decrees. 
This latter course seems, on every account, to be the most advis- 
able. The essential point of difference between the Protestant and 
the Eomish view of the Church has no necessary connexion with 
what are commonly called Calvinistic views; and, as these doc- 
trines have been a fruitful source of controversy among Protestants 
themselves, it seems better to avoid the topic altogether. 

Whatever be the merits or defects of Protestantism, it is evident, 
from the foregoing extracts, that it is not, as Bossuet would have 
us believe,* a system of chaotic inconsistencies: the unanimity 
of sentiment, and even similarity of expression, proving that, 
however they may have occasionally clothed their ideas in ill- 
chosen language, the Reformers had a consistent view of their 
own, and were well aware at what points it diverged from that of 
their opponents. If the reader compares together the statements 
of the several formularies, he will perhaps deem the following a 
sufficiently accurate representation of the distinctive teaching of 
Protestantism on the subject of the idea of the Church. 

The one true Church, the holy Catholic Church of the Creed, is 
not a body of mixed composition, comprehending within its pale 
both the evil and the good: it is the community of those who, 
wherever they may be, are in living union with Christ by faith, 
and partake of the sanctifying influences of His Spirit. Properly, 
it comprises, besides its members now upon earth, all who shall 
ultimately be saved. In its more confined acceptation, the phrase 
denotes the body of true believers existing at any given time in 
the world. 

The true Church is so far invisible as that it is not yet mani- 
fested in its corporate capacity ; or, in other words, there is no one 
society, or visible corporation upon earth, of which it can be said 
that it is the mystical body of Christ. Hence, of course, the Head 
of this body is not visible. 

Particular churches, otherwise unconnected societies, are one by 
reason of their common relation. to, and connexion with, the one 
true Church or mystical body of Christ. The outward n< 
this connexion, and therefore of a true visib le Church, arc, the purr 
preaching of the Word (in fundamentals at least),! and the admin: 
istration of the Sacraments " according to Christ's ordinance in all 

* Histoire des Variations, ic. liv. xv. 



58 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

those things that of necessity are requisite to the same " These 
are the two indispensable notes of a true Church : to them may be 
added, though it stands not in the same order of necessity, the ex- 
ercise of discipline. 

Although visible churches are, according to the idea, " congre- 
gations of saints," i. e. of really sanctified persons, and must be 
regarded as such if they are to have the name of Churches, yet 
they are never really so : in point of fact, they are always mixed 
communities, comprising hypocrites and nominal Christians, as 
well as true believers, a perfect separation between whom is, in 
the present life, impossible, and is reserved to the second coming 
of Christ to judgment. Hence the aggregate of visible Christian 
Churches throughout the world is not exactly identical with the 
true Church, which, as has been said, consists only of the living 
members of Christ. 

Such notes as, "the succession of Bishops," "antiquity," "am- 
plitude," "the name of Catholic," &c, are, taken alone, not sufficient 
to prove a society to be a true Church of Christ. 

To the one true Church, the body of Christ, properly belong the 
promises of perpetuity, of the continued presence of Christ, and 
of preservation from fundamental error. The same may be said 
of the attributes of the Church, Unity, Sanctity, &c. ; these, in 
their full and proper sense, can be predicated only of that body of 
Christ which is not yet fully manifested. 

The explanations which are necessary to clear up the meaning 
of several of these positions are reserved for a more fitting place. 
In what sense Protestants speak of an invisible Church, or call the 
true Church invisible ; what the connexion is between the Church 
in its truth and the Church as visible ; in what light we are to 
regard local Christian societies ; — upon these points some remarks, 
intended to obviate misconceptions of the Protestant view, will 
hereafter be offered. The question now more immediately before 
us is, What is the essential point of distinction between the Komish 
and the Protestant idea of the Church, as it is to be gathered from 
a comparison of the statements above given ? In the following 
chapter an attempt will be made to determine this important 
point. 



POINTS OF AGREEMENT AND DIFFERENCE. 59 



CHAPTER II. 

POINTS OF AGREEMENT, AND FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 
ROMANISTS AND PROTESTANTS, AS REGARDS THE IDEA OF THE 
CHURCH. 

In instituting a comparison between different theological sys- 
tems, it is obviously the proper course, first to examine whether 
they hold any truths in common, and then, having ascertained 
how far they agree, to mark the point of divergence, and trace out 
the subsequent differences hence arising. In no other way is an 
accurate knowledge of the several schools of doctrinal divinity 
which have arisen in the Church, and especially of the differences 
between Protestantism and Romanism, opposed as they are to 
each other, not absolutely but relatively, to be attained. Ob- 
viously proper, however, as this rule is, there is none which has 
been by controversialists more frequently transgressed. Both Ro- 
manists and Protestants have been too much in the custom of in- 
sisting strongly upon some one great truth, as if it were peculiar 
to their own system, without deeming it necessary to inquire 
whether, and how far, it is admitted by the opposite party : the 
consequence of which is that, not only have the most incorrect 
representations been given of the doctrines held on each side 
respectively, but the real points on which the controversy turns 
have escaped notice, or at least have not been brought out into a 
clear light. 

For example, it is difficult to conceive how any writer, who had 
carefully compared the public declarations of* the Romish and the 
Protestant Churches, on the subject under discussion, could have 
thought of stating the differences thus : — " The chief question to 
be answered is this : — How do we arrive at a true knowledge of 
the doctrine of Christ; or rather of the plan of redemption pro- 
posed for our acceptance in Christ Jesus? The Protestant re- 
plies, By searching the Scriptures, which cannot deceive : the Ca- 
tholic (Romanist) says, By means of the church, in which, and in 
which alone, we attain to the true understanding of Scripture :" or 
of representing the teaching of Protestantism as follows: — "Lu- 
sher considered each believer as absolutely independent of any 



60 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

religious community ; such being, in his view, quite unnecessary, 
inasmuch as God alone" (i. e. without any external instrument) 
" teaches the Christian." "What, according to the Protestant 
view, can the Church be, but a purely invisible community ?" (a 
community, it is meant, solely of the Spirit, without visible notes 
of any kind). "As regards the origin of the Church, Luther's 
view was as follows : — Faith in Christ strikes root in some par- 
ticular individual" (independently of any external means); "if 
this faith advances to maturity, and is openly professed, the indi- 
vidual becomes a recognised disciple of the Saviour. Should he 
find others of the same mind with himself, they unite together, 
and form a society, publishing a confession of what they believe : 
and thus it is that the Church, as a visible body, comes into exist- 
ence;"* (in other words, Protestants hold the Church to be a mere 
voluntary association, which acknowledges no higher authority 
than the private judgment of those who choose to belong to it.) 
When an author like Moehler, not of the inferior class of Komish 
controversialists best known in this country, but occupying a high 
place among the theologians of his Church, can thus represent, or 
rather misrepresent, the views of his opponents, it is the less to be 
wondered at that some amongst ourselves, owing, no doubt, to an 
imperfect acquaintance with the subject, should entertain miscon- 
ceptions equally gross, and even absurd. It can be attributed to 
nothing but an oversight, that a recent advocate of (so-called) 
Church principles should thus describe what he conceives to be 
the Protestant, or Evangelical, theory: — "There the Church is 
not considered as intervening in any way between the Saviour and 
the individual, but rather it is regarded as an institution of con- 
vention, resting upon grounds of religious expediency; and her 
laws as dependent upon the will of individuals, whether few or 
many. The scheme of salvation is addressed by God not through 
one channel to a vast visible body, but to a selected number of 
particular persons. This salvation is conveyed direct by an opera- 
tion exclusively internal, &c. &c."f 

In order to obviate mistakes of this kind, it will be advisable, 
in the first instance, to point out to what extent both parties are 
agreed ; and thus to clear the way to an accurate apprehension of 
the true point in dispute between them. 

* Mochlcr's Symbolik, pp. 359. 414. 418. and 421. The edition of this work referred t 
is the German one of 1838. 

t Church Principles considered in their Results, by W. E. Gladstone, Esq. London, 1840 
p. 126. 



7 



POINTS OF AGREEMENT AND DIFFERENCE. 61 

The most cursory glance at the extracts above given will con- 
vince the reader that on both sides it is admitted/that the Christian 
life is essentially a social, one ; in other words, that Christ came 



into the world not only to reveal certain truths, or to establish an 
unseen fellowship between Himself and His followers, but to found 
a Church upon earth. A state of isolation and independency is 
no more the natural tendency of Protestantism than of Komanism. 
"We hold," says the Belgic Confession, "that since out of the 
Church there is no salvation, no one, of whatever order or dignity 
he may be, is at liberty to separate himself from the congregation 
of saints, and live in solitary independence ; but that all are bound 
to unite themselves to it, to preserve its unity, and to minister to 
the edification of their brethren, the members of the same body."* 
The obligation of social union among Christians is so unequivo- 
cally declared in Scripture, that no persons calling themselves 
Christians, and acknowledging the authority of the sacred wri- 
tings, have been found to deny it. 

Considered in one point of view, indeed, religion is a transac- 
tion between God and the individual spirit of man : the true life 
of the Christian is hid with Christ in God, and the exercises of it, 
repentance, faith, and love, are matters strictly personal, and can- 
not be predicated, except in a loose and improper sense, of a com- 
munity. And, no doubt, it js_conceivable that nothing more than 
such a solitary communion of the individual worshipper with God 
might have been designed by the Divine Founder of Christianity : 
that his followers might have been intended to form no visible 
associations, but to hold, each in the solitude of his own heart, in- 1 
tercourse with Deity. There is nothing positively absurd in such 
asupposition ; at the same time, there is a strong antecedent im- 
probability against it. For man is essentially a social being, and 
human life, as distinguished from that of the brutes, is a life of 
communion and fellowship ; the faculties of reason and speech, 
which are denied to the lower animals, unequivocally manifesting 
the divine intention that men should congregate into polities, f 
< Moreover, it is only in a social state that men's faculties, whether 
moral or intellectual, attain any high degree of expansion or im- 
provement. " He that suffices for himself," the ancient philosopher 
tells us, " must either be a brute or a God." It is only in social 

* Conf. Belg. s. 28. 

t * . . vdpuiros <pioti no\tr(Kdp faov. — Aoyov p.6vov avOpcoro; l\ti ruiv ^uo)»' bdi \6yof M rw 
irjXovv eari ri <rvp<pepov kuI rd P\a p )cp6v^ Stare rd 6'iKaiov koX rd idiKOr. 'H 6i roirutv Kotruvia 
tot el oiiciav gai n6\iv Arist. Pol. 1. i. c. 2. 



62 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

combinations that a sphere is opened for the exercise of the moral 
faculties ; that a division of labour takes place, natural superiority 
of mind or body assumes its due place, arts are cultivated, and 
everything comprised in the term civilisation, makes progress. 
And the more civilised a community becomes, the higher it rises 
in the scale of intelligence, the more closely will its members be 
connected together, not merely by laws and institutions, but by 
the invisible bond of mutual dependence, and co-operation. Judg- 
ing, then, by what we know of the actual constitution of man, and 
of the conditions necessary to his intellectual and moral culture, 
we should deem it in. £he highest degree unlikely that those who, 
from age to age, were to be partakers of the spiritual life of which 
Christ is the source, should be thereby brought into a new relation 
towards God merely, and not, also, towards each other : that there 
should be true religion in the world, but no Church. 

It is almost superfluous to remark that the_jmticipations which 
we should be thus led to form have been fully realised. The 
Divine Spirit, of which the Christian is partaker through Christ, 
not only gives him access directly to the Father, but . also connects 
him with every other Christian : so that, as there is one Spirit, 
one Lord, one faith, there is also one baptism, and one body, and 
no one can be in communion with Christ, in the full sense of the 
words, without also being in communion with Christ's Church. (In^ 
accordance with the language of ancient prophecy when describing 
the Messiah's kingdom, — language which always suggests the 
idea of organised unity, as distinguished from a mere collection 
of atoms, — our L ord, from the very first, contemplated His fol- 
lowers as forming social combinations. The kingdom of heaven 
upon earth was to be like a field of corn, a net full of fishes, and 
a household : or, to cite another image, ^Christians were to bear 
I the same relation to Christ which the branches do to the vine, the 
same hidden life which nourishes each in particular, forming a 
bond of union between all. Indeed, in two passages, our Lord, 
'by a kind o£ prolepsis, applies to the company of his disciples the 
very term which afterwards became the one commonly used to 

/ distinguish them from the Jewish synagouge; the term, \exxhjaicc+ 
or Church* And when His earthly mission was about to close, 

^7 in Ithe solemn prayer which he offered up for His disciples, His 

* St. Matt. xvi. 18, — "Upon this rock I will build my church ;" and xviii. 17, — "Tell it 
unto the church." Our word " church," like the German kirche, is derived from KvpiaicSv, 
i. c. the Lord's house. 



POINTS OF AGREEMENT AND DIFFERENCE. 63 

repeated petition was, that "they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, 
art in Me, and I in Thee ; that they may be one in Us, that the 
world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." * 

When the Church was formally constituted on the day of Pente- 
cost, its members appear at once in outward and visible union 
with each other. Even the promised Comforter descended upon 
^ r the Apostle's and disciples, not as they were scattered here and 
there, but when "they were all with one accord in one place." 
And thenceforth it was the rule of the Divine administration to 
add "to the Church," that is, to the existing society of Christians, 
" such as should be saved." ~~r~ 

Equally evident is it, that to affirm that Eomanists teach that 
the Church is visible, Protestants that it is invisible, is to misre- 
present the real state of the case. QBoth parties hold that the 
Church is visible ; thou gh it is quite true that when they come to 
explain their meaning, they differ very materially. A purely 
invisible Church is a fiction discarded on both sides. The follow- 
ing declaration of the French Confession expresses the common 
sentiment of all Protestants : — " We openly affirm that where the 
Word of Grod is not received, where there is no profession of faith, 
and administration of the Sacraments, there, properly speaking, 
we cannot affirm that there is any Church." f To assign any 
"notes," that is visible signs, such as the preaching of the Word 
and the administration of the Sacraments, to a community abso- 
lutely invisible, would be a manifest absurdity ; but these, accord- 
ing to all the Protestant confessions, are the notes of the — or 
rather a — Church. The Keformers were careful to explain dis- 
tinctly that, while rejecting the Eomish definition of the Church, 
they by no means, as their adversaries falsely insinuated, reduced 
the latter to a mere philosophical idea, a Utopia, having no actual 
existence, or without visible tokens of its presence. "We do 
not," says Melancthon, in reply to the Papal theologians, "as some 
cavillers affirm, dream of a Platonic republic: we say that the 
Church is an existing reality ; and we assign the notes of it, the 
Word and the Sacraments."^: 
x*jk 'Christians, it has been already observed, were to form a society, 

/' or societies : (but [no human association can exist, much less en- 
dure, without some visible tokens to mark the incorporation, and 

* John xvii. 21. t Conf. Gall. Art. 28. 

X " Neque vero somniamus nos Platonicam civitatem, ut quidam impie cavillantur; sed 
dicimus existere hanc ecclesiam : et addimus notas, puram doetrinam evangelii, et sacra- 
tuenta," — Apol. Coiif. Aug. c. 4. 






64 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

the continuance therein, of those of whom it is to be composed 
without these, there may be a casual assemblage of persons, but 
not a society. The Church, as Bellarmin well remarks, though a 
spiritual community, is not a community of mere spirits, but of 
men ; and in its constitution, the complex nature of man had to 

£ De kept in view* ( The re can be no society, where there is no 
mutual recognition of the members; and recognise each other 
they cannot, unless they are distinguished from others by some 

j> outward symbol. Besides, a mere inward commun ion of t he^spirit 
would have left unsatisfied the natural craving, which belongs to 
human nature, for something visible and tangible, as the exponent 
yitsr sUr) of the life within. In gracious condescension to these require- 
ments, inseparable from our mixed constitution,/our_Lord Himself 
appointed_the visible sign by which the societiea of his follo wers 

/ should be known; not only ) sanctio ning the practice of social wor- 
jship by attaching His special presence and blessing to the assern^ 
£ bring of two or three together in Hid name, but jo^ainin^jhejwo 
jjacramentsj / i Baptism , and the^Lord's Supper; the one to mark 
visibly the entrance of an individual into a Christian society, the 
other his continuance therein ; and both to be pledges of the union 
of Christians with Him, and with each other. Accordingly, [ the 
very first mention of the Church in the Acts of the Apostles pre- 
sents it to us as manifesting its unseen fellowship by means of the 
visible ordinances aforesaid. " They that gladly received his word 
were baptized :" *' they continued steadfastly in the Apostle's doc- 
trine, in fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayer:" 
" they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and, break- 
ing bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness 
and singleness of heart."f No one was recognised as a Christian 
who did not give this public evidence of his Christianity. 

Equally remote from the truth are the assertions of Moehler, 
and others, that, according to Protestant views, the Church "in 

* "Ecclesia est societas quaedam, non Angelorum, neque animarum, sed hominum. Non 
autem dici potest societas hominum, nisi in externis et visibilibus signis consistat ; nam non 
est societas, nisi se agnoscant ii qui dicantur socii; non autem se possunt homines agnos- 
cere, nisi societatis vincula sint externa et visibilia." — De Eccl. Mil. lib. iii. c. 12. 

t Aots ii. 41, 42. 46. Whatever the word tcoivuvla, which occurs in the last of these 
verses, may mean, our version is obviously incorrect in taking it with ' Airoor6\a)w . Had 
St. Luke's meaning been, "the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship," he would have written, 
irpotTKapTepovpres rn SiSaXn koI rt\ KOivbivia rcov Wno<7r6\u)v, not r>7 6i6aXrj twv '. notrr6\o}v, rot rif 
Koivuvia, Kai rrj kX'utei, &c. ; where the word 'AttootoXwj/ is clearly connected with 6i5ax>i only. 
The point would not be worth noticing, had not erroneous theories been built upon the mis- 
txanslatiou. See Manning's Unity of the Church, p. 84. (2nd edition.) 



/ 



POINTS OF AGREEMENT AND DIFFERENCE. 6-0 

no way intervenes between the Saviour and the individual ;" 
that God alone teaches the Christian, and that, "by an operation 
exclusively internal ;" or that it is " by reading the Scriptures,' 1 
that, ordinarily, persons are first brought to the knowledge of 
Christ. The functions of the Church, in the application of Christ's 
saving work to individuals, would, no doubt, be differently de- 
scribed by a Eomanist and a Protestant; but that (the instrument 
ality of the Church,, in some sense of the words, is, as an ordinary 
rule, indispensable to the salvation of the individual, is as strongly 
asserted by the latter as it is by the former. Let the reader recall 
to mind the express statements of the larger Catechism of Luther. 
" The Holy Spirit carries on his sancfrnying work by means of the 
communion of Saints, or the Christian Church." "The Holy 
Spirit transplants us into His society, the Church, through which, 
as an instrument, He teaches us, and leads us to Christ." "Where 
the doctrine of Christ is not taught, there the Holy Spirit, whose 
office it is to constitute the Church, does not work."* "God," say 
the Swiss Protestants, "could, indeed, by an immediate exercise 
of His power add persons to the Church ; but He prefers to act 
upon men through the ministry of men. We must be on our 
guard against the error of so attributing the work of our conver- 
sion and edification to the secret influence of the Spirit, as to make 
void the office of the ministry."! 

The fact is, [the Chu rch may, and indeed must always be, viewed 
under a twofold aspect (/jit jsjboth the manifestatior^LndLtheJiJi; 
sjrument of Christ's saving power ; it is both the visible evidence 
of the Saviour's unseen existence and operation, and the means 
whereby, from age to age, He gathers in His elect. (Th e suppo- 
sition that the divine plan would be to save individuals by an 
immediate, and exclusively internal, operation of the Spirit, is 
negatived by the whole analogy of nature. [The rule observed by 
the Creator in His providential government of the world is, not 
to interfere directly in human affairs, but to effect His purposes 
mediately, and by means of instruments. It is thus that having 
at first, by an exercise of His Almighty will, launched the ^hea- 
venly bodies into space, and assigned to each a determinate path 
of revolution, He has, instead of perpetually renewing that origi- 
nal impulse, subjected them to the uniform operation of a law, by 
which, as a secondary cause, their motions are now governed, and 

* See above, p. 49, 50. 

t Conf. Ilel., c. 18. De MinisU Eccl. 

5 






6Q CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

they retained in their appointed orbits. So also,/ having created 
/men^in the first instance, by an immediate act of Omnipotence, 
out of the dust of the earth, He has replenished the world with 
human beings, not by a repetition of that primary miracle, but by 
causing all men to spring, by propagation, from the original pair. 
In the same way, the well-being, both spiritual and temporal, of 
each individual is very much dependent upon the voluntary acts 
of others ; and though nothing is more certain than that God wills 
the happiness of all his creatures, He often suffers (as it appears to 
us) His gracious purposes to be frustrated, rather than infringe the 
rule which He has prescribed to Himself, of making man the in- 
strument of good to man. It would be a deviation, then, from the 
rule which He observes in other things, were God, either to dis- 
pense with human instruments in bringing men to the knowledge 
of Christ, or to make no provision for perpetuating that saving- 
knowledge by a law of succession, analogous to that which we see 
in operation in the material world. In a word, we should consider 
it quite in accordance with the analogy of nature, that while, in 
the well known words of Bishop Butler, " miraculous powers" 
should be "given to the first preachers of Christianity, in order to 
their introducing it into the world, a visible Church" (or visible 
Churches) " should be established in order to continue it and carry 
it on throughout all ages : — to be the repository of the oracles of 
God ; to hold up the light of revelation in aid to that of nature, 
and propagate it throughout all generations to the end of the 
world."* 

And so, in point of fact, was it ordered. The Church, being in 
the first instance formally constituted by the miraculous descent 
of the Spirit, was thenceforward both to perpetuate itself, and 
to evangelize the world, by the agency of human instruments. 
It is in the ( use of t he Word and the Sacraments, preached and 
administered by men, that the existing members of the Church 
are built up in the faith : it is by pastoral instruction that the 
children and catechumens of the society are prepared both for full 
communion with the Church and for the office of transmitting, in 
their turn, the faith which they received from their fathers to 
generations yet unborn. 'So it is also in the work of jnission s. 
The Church, in fulfilling her Lord's command to evangelize all 
nations, must employ human agency. "How shall they believe in 
Him of whom they have not heard ? And how shall they hear 

* Analogy, part ii. c. 1. 



<CA 



POINTS OF AGREEMENT AND DIFFERENCE. 67 

without a preacher ? And how shall they preach except they be 
sent ?" And upon the Church is imposed the duty of sending. 
If the duty be neglected, no miraculous interference can be ex- 
pected to atone for the neglect ; and the heathen perish. It is 
evident, then, and admitted, that it is of the essence of the Church, 
not only to be visible, that is, to manifest its existence by outward 
signs, but to be the human instrument both of edifying its own 
members, and of converting the heathen ; and we can form no 
idea of it which does not represent it as preaching, teaching, 
and administering the Sacraments. Under this aspect it comes 
into view in the earliest notices which we have of it. No 
sooner had the Spirit been given, than the Apostles, in obedience 
to their Lord's command, began to be "witnesses of Him" "in 
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter- 
most parts of the earth." The infant community of Christians at 
once exhibited the aspect of an actively aggressive body, assailing 
every form of superstition and error, and inviting all men to par- 
take of the blessings of Salvation : while within the society itself, 
by means of the "Apostles' doctrine," participation in the Holy 
Communion, and the exercise of discipline, Christians were built 
up in Christ. 

Once more, it must in fairness to the Romanist be conceded 
that he does not, as has been sometimes affirmed, absolutely deny 
that there is a [two fold point of view, an outward and an inward, 
frojn which the Church may be made a matter of consideration. 
The Romish Catechism, while strenuously maintaining that the 
Church, in its idea, consists both of the good and the evil, yet 
does, as we have seen, make a difference between the living and 
the dead members of it ; and by no means denies that, under the 
external form of Christian profession, there exists an inner, and 
unseen, circle of those who are in vital communion with the 
Saviour. "The good are those who are united to each other, not 
only by a common profession of faith and reception of the Sacra- 
ments, but by the Spirit of Grace and the bond of charity ; of 
whom it is said, ' The Lord knoweth them that are His.' " * And 
Bellarmin expressly adopts the following statement of Augustin : 
— The Church is a living system, composed both of a body and a 
soul; — the soul being the internal gifts of the Spirit, faith, love, 
&c. ; the body, an external profession of the faith, and use of the 
Sacraments. Hence it follows, that some belong both to the body 

* Cat Rom. c. 10. s. 10. 



68 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

and soul of the Church, viz., the truly pious ; these may be com 
pared to the living members of the body, although they partake 
of life in different degrees. Others belong only to the soul, as 
catechumens, or excommunicated persons, if (as may occur) they 
have faith and love. Others, lastly, are of the body only, such r 
namely, as, while they have no inward grace, are in outward com- 
munion with the Church * 

Thus far all Christians, or, if not all, certainly the Eomish and 
the Protestant Churches, are agreed. It would have been needless 
to enlarge upon such obvious truths, were it not that, as has been 
remarked, this common ground upon which both parties meet has 
been by Eomish controversialists, and by those amongst ourselves 
who incline to the Romish view, appropriated as exclusively their 
own. That the Church is, in one sense, visible ; that, as a general 
rule, those who would be saved must be members of a Christian 
society, and participate in the visible ordinances appointed by 
Christ ; that the Church is the instrument by which Christ both 
perfects His own people, and extends His kingdom in the world ; 
these truths are often triumphantly brought forward as destruc- 
tive of, or at least incompatible with, the doctrines of Protestant- 
ism. As if every Protestant confession did not distinctly enunciate 
them. "When, therefore, the Romanist, and they who adopt his 
theory, insist upon the fact that the Church of Scripture has the 
property of being visible ; when they urge the necessity of the 
Sacraments to salvation, where they can be had, and of some au- 
thority external, and superior, to individual feeling or reason; 
when, lastly, they direct an attention to the importance of Unity, 
and the suppression of the individual, selfish, will, the reply to be 
made is that, if by eloquent declamations of this kind,f they in- 
tend it to be understood that Protestants reject, or can find no 
place in their system for, these truths and these Christian graces, 
they are either unacquainted with, or misrepresent, the views of 
their opponents ; and that what they would fain appropriate to 
themselves is nothing but the common belief of all bodies of or- 
thodox Christians. It is quite true that when we come to inquire 
in what the visibility of the Church properly consists, and in what 
relation it stands to the Spirit within, we find serious differences 
beginning to emerge into view ; but it by no means follows that f 
because Protestants reject a proposition in the sense attached to it 

* De Eccles. Mil. c. 2. ad fin. 

t Such, for example, as Moehler's preliminary section on the subject Symbolik, pp. 
139-359. 



POINTS OF AGREEMENT AND DIFFERENCE. 69 

by Komanists, there is no sense in which they admit it. Let it be 
kept in mind that both parties agree in holding that the Chnrch 
is, not a volnntary association, but a divine institution; that it 
must ever give proof of its existence by the exhibition of out- 
ward notes, viz. the preaching of the Word, the administration of 
the Sacraments, and the exercise of discipline; and that, as out 
of the Church there is ordinarily no covenanted salvation, so, ex- 
cept by means of the Church, no one is ordinarily brought to the 
knowledge of Christ. 

But if there is, in fact, so large a field of coincidence between the 
contending parties, it may seem difficult to conceive what room 
ean be left for a difference, especially for a difference of great 
moment: and, in truth, here, as well as on some other points, (the v^in^** 
difference is notjLbsjolu^eJbut relative; a fact which should always , . 
be borne in mind. In many instances, the controversy on points 
of doctrine between Komanists and Protestants turns, not upon the 
absolute denial by either party of that which is affirmed by the 
other, but either upon the degree of importance which each assigns 
to different aspects of the same subject, or upon the difference of 
relation in which the constituent elements of the subject are made 
to stand to each other. Thus, it may be said, in a general way, 
that the controversy on the subject of justification is reducible to 
this : — that one side insists more strongly on St. James', the other 
on St. Paul's, statements respecting the nature of faith ; which, 
however, we know must be reconcilable with each other. So it is 
in the present case, as we proceed to point out. 

The_real poin t of distinc tion, then, between the two parties, 
consists , not in one's denying, and the other's maintaining, ^ 
that the Church may be regarded from a twofold point of ; ^ Ktn 
view, according as we make what is visible, and what is in- 
visible, in it, the subject of consideration; but [in the relative 
importance, and the relative position, which each party, re- 
spectively, assigns to those two aspects of the Church. The dif- 
ference is this : — the Komanist, while admitting that there is, 
or ought to be, in the Church an interior life, not cognisable by 
human eye, yet regards this as a separable accident, and makes 
the essence of the Church to consist in what is external and visi- 
ble: the Protestant, on the contrary, while admitting that to be 
visible is an inseparable property of the Church, makes the essence 
thereof to consist in what is spiritual and unseen ; viz. the work 
of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Christians. The one defines 
the Church by its outward, the other by its inward, characteristics. 



70 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

Neither party can absolutely refuse assent to the well-known 
aphorism of Irenaeus, "ubi ecclesia ibi et spiritus Dei ; ubi spiritus 
Dei ibi ecclesia ;" but since, in its two clauses, that aphorism may 
be held to represent different tendencies, on the one hand, to make 
the presence of the Spirit dependent upon, and posterior in point 
of time to, the existence of the Church, and, on the other, to make 
the existence of the Church dependent upon the presence of the 
Spirit, it accurately expresses the true point of controversy be- 
tween Eomanists and Protestants. To the question, What is the 
Church? the Eomanist replies, that it is a visible institution, in 
which men are placed in order to be made holy, and thus qualified 
for the presence of God hereafter; while the answer of the Protest- 
ant is, that, according to its true idea (proprie, principaliter dicta,)* 
it is a society of those who are sanctified (pro ratione hujus vita?) 
by the Spirit of God, and possess within them the earnest of the 
future inheritance : the former holds that to constitute a person a 
member of the Church, and therefore a member of Christ himself, 
it suffices that he profess the Christian faith, partake outwardly of 
the Sacraments, and be subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop 
of Eome; the latter maintains that he only properly belongs to 
the Church who is in vital union with the Saviour by faith, and 
partakes of the quickening influence of Christ's Spirit. The dis- 
tinction which the Eomanist admits to exist between the living 
and the dead members of the Church, does not affect his definition 
of the latter, for he makes a distinction between church-member- 
ship and a state of salvation; the latter, indeed, can only be 
affirmed of those who are renewed in heart, but the former may 
be enjoyed even by those who are living in mortal sin. Divesting 
thus the idea of the Church, in its ultimate state, of everything 
moral, that is, making it a thing indifferent to the idea whether 
the Spirit of God, in His sanctifying influences, be present or not, 
he is, of course, compelled to consider the Church as, primarily, 
an external institution; the differentia, or specific difference, of 
which lies in its polity, its rites, or its episcopal succession. The 
Protestant, on the contrary, can make no distinction between being 
a member of the Church, and being in a state of salvation ; and 
as, confessedly, an inward change, the work of the Spirit, is nee 
sary to salvation, for " unless a man be born again he cannot sec 
the kingdom of God," it is, in his eyes, equally necessary to true 
Church-membership ; or, in other words, he defines the Church to 

* Apol. Conf. Aug. Art. 7. s. 25. 



POINTS OP AGEEEMENT AND DIFFERENCE. 71 

be, primarily, a community of saints, making the presence of the 
Spirit the specific difference of the body, its visible polity a matter 
of secondary moment. Or, the difference may be thus stated : the 
Romanist regards that which is visible in the Church as the ante- 
cedent ; the Protestant as the consequent of the life within : the 
former attributes a positive and independent value to the outward 
characteristics of the body ; the latter values them chiefly as the 
evidences of the unseen work of the spirit. Moehler is fairer and 
more accurate than usual, when he says, " that the difference be- 
tween the Protestant and the Romanist view of the Church may 
be briefly stated as follows : — the Romanist teaches that the visible 
Church is first in the order of time, afterwards the invisible ; the 
relation of the former to the latter being that of cause and effect. 
The Lutherans (Protestants), on the contrary, affirm that the 
visible Church owes its existence to the invisible, the latter beino- 
the true basis of the former."* He adds, very justly, that this 
apparently unimportant difference of view is pregnant with im- 
portant results. 

That the difference of view just mentioned lies at the root of 
the statements of the rival Confessions will be evident from the 
most cursory inspection of them. To recur to the positions of the 
Romish Catechism. Were we to frame from them a definition of 
the Church, it would be, that it is a company of men [professing ^ 
faith in^ Chris t, ^ outwardly partaking of the Sa craments, and /in 
£Ojmnunion with the Roman pontiff; it being, as regards the idea, 
a matter of indifference whether they be, or be not, sanctified by 
the Spirit of God. That this is the true doctrine of Rome is 
evident from the frequency and emphasis with which the Cate- 
chism affirms that both the good and the evil are, though in a 
different sense, yet equally as far as the definition, which expresses 
the idea of the thing defined, is concerned, members of the Church ; 
for, if this be true, it is clear that the essential being of the Church 
must lie, not in the internal work of the Holy Spirit, which, con- 
fessedly, as an active principle of holiness, is not found in all who 
are visibly within the ecclesiastical pale, but in that which may 
be common to the evil and the good ; viz. subjection to the same 
central authority, and outward participation in the same Sacra- 
ments. The unrenewed in heart can, equally with those who are 
led by the Holy Spirit, profess faith in Christ, " carnally and 
visibly press with" their " teeth the sacrament of the body and 

• Symbolik, pp. 425, 426. 






72 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

blood of Christ," and be under the jurisdiction of lawful pastors ; 
and if this is all that is meant by being a member of Christ, that 
is, if internal union with the Saviour is not essential to the idea 
of the Church, most true it is that no reason exists why we should 
not apply that title to those whose lives prove them to be desti- 
tute of sanctifying faith, so long as they are not openly excom- 
municated. The Jew, however morally corrupt he might be, yet, 
as long as he fulfilled the requirements of the ceremonial law, 
was a recognised member of the Hebrew commonwealth and en- 
titled to the temporal privileges thereto belonging ; from which 
we justly infer that the Jewish economy was one rather of the 
letter than of the spirit, and had its essential being in its polity 
and ceremonial. The same inference must be drawn with respect 
to the Christian dispensation, if it be true, as the Romish Cate- 
chism affirms, that the good and the evil are equally members of 
the Church, and equally partakers of Christian privileges. 

The statements of private theologians are not, as has been 
already observed, to be esteemed of equal weight with those set 
forth by authority : there is one writer, however, of such deserv- 
edly great estimation among those of his own communion as to 
render his expositions of doctrine of the greatest value in ascer- 
taining the true meaning of the Eomish formularies; I mean 
Bellarmin. If any doubt should exist whether the Romish con- 
ception of the Church be really what it has been described to be, 
it will be removed by the statements of that eminent authority. 
The definition which Bellarmin gives of the Church is as follows : 
" It is a society of men united by a profession of the same Christian 
faith, and a participation of the same sacraments, under the gov- 
ernment of lawful pastors, and especially of the one Yicar of 
Christ upon earth, the Roman pontiff. Of this definition there are 
three parts: — the profession of the true faith; communion in the 
sacraments ; and subjection to the pastoral authority of the Bishop 
of Rome. By the first they are excluded who either, as the Jews, 
the Turks, or the heathen, never belonged to the Church, or, as 
heretics, have seceded from her. By the second are excluded 
catechumens and excommunicated persons (their communion in 
the sacraments being deferred or suspended); and, by the third, 
schismatics, or they who, though professing the pure doctrine of 
the Gospel, and celebrating the sacraments, are not subject to the 
one legitimate pastor. All others, even impious and reprobate 
men, are included in the definition ; for the Church is a society of 
men as visible and palpable as the Roman people, the kingdom of 



POINTS OF AGREEMENT AND DIFFERENCE. 73 

France, or the republic of Venice."* It is not that the Romanist 
denies that the end for which the divine institution, called the 
Church, was established, is to lead its members eventually to holi- 
ness ; or that it would, were there no living members of Christ 
within its pale, be in a very imperfect state, and fail of its proper 
end. What he does deny is, that the inward work of the Spirit, 
as evidenced in newness of life, is necessary to the idea of the 
Church, or of its essence : he makes sanctifying faith in Christ an 
accident, not the very being, of true Church-membership. And, 
quite consistently with the general view which Bellarmin, as above 
quoted, presents us with, the attributes of the Church are, by the 
Romish Catechism, considered almost exclusively under an exter- 
nal aspect. The unity of the Church is made to consist, princi- 
pally, in its profession of "one faith," "one Lord," and in its 
subjection to one visible head. Its sanctity is such as may equally 
be predicated of inanimate objects, consecrated to holy uses ; that 
is, it consists primarily in an outward dedication to the service of 
Christ. The two remaining properties, Catholicity and Apostol- 
icity, are, necessarily, more or less of an external character ; but the 
latter of them is interpreted in the least spiritual sense admissible, 
when it is made to consist, chiefly, in visible government by a 
ministry derived by succession from the Apostles. Such premises 
as these are manifestly necessary to warrant the conclusion, that 
persons' living in mortal sin are, nevertheless, so long as they 
remain in communion with the Bishop of Rome, members — real, 
though not perhaps lively, members — of the true Church. 

On the other hand, if we set out with the supposition that what 
constitutes the true being of the Church is, not that in it which 
meets the eye, but the unseen presence of the Spirit of God, sanc- 
tifying true believers, the peculiarities of the Protestant view, as 
distinguished from that of Rome, are at once accounted for, and 
the statements of the Reformed formularies justified. For, on this 
supposition, it is plain that the Church, in its truth, is not, and 
cannot be, in this life, visibly manifested ; it being impossible for 
human eye to discriminate accurately between the true and the 
nominal followers of Christ ; and not being visibly manifested in 
its corporate capacity, it can have no visible head. Hence, too, 
(since properties follow the nature of the subject in which they 
inhere,) according to Protestant teaching, the unity and sanctity of 

* " Includuntur autem omnes alii, etiamsi reprobi, scelesti, et impii flint. Ecclesia enim 
est coetus hominuin ita visibilis et palpabilis, ut est coetus populi Romani, aut reguum Gal. 
liae, aut respublica Venetorum." — De Eccles. Mil. c. 2. 



74 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

the Church are inward before they become outward, participation 
in the same Spirit constituting the essential bond of union among 
Christians. Hence, finally, it is that the Protestant, while he 
admits that unrenewed men may, and indeed must, be found in 
every visible Church, denies that they are members of the Church, 
i. e. of the Church in its truth ; denies, that is, that the latter is a 
body of mixed composition, comprehending within its pale both 
those who are, and those who are not, led by the Spirit of God. 
To admit that unsanctified men are true members of the true 
Church would obviously lead to the Eomish doctrine, that the lat- 
ter is a visible institution, under a visible head, its essential being 
lying in its visible characteristics. 

If it should seem strange to the reader that a mere relative dif- 
ference in the mode of viewing the same object should give rise 
to systems of very opposite character, he has only to remember 
that most of the errors that have appeared in the Church, both 
in past and present times, have arisen from giving an undue pro- 
minence to what in itself is an undoubted truth. Thus Arian ten- 
dencies spring from dwelling too exclusively upon the humanity 
of Christ ; while the opposite error of the Docetae, which mani- 
fested itself under so many forms in the first two centuries, may 
be traced to a similar exclusiveness of view with respect to His 
divinity. Sabellianism took its rise from not counterbalancing 
the declarations of the Old Testament, respecting the Unity of 
Cod, with the equally clear statements of the New Testament 
respecting the Trinity in Unity. Certain declarations of St. Paul 
on the subject of justification, misunderstood, have led to Antino- 
mianism: certain others of St. James, taken alone, have given 
rise to a type of sentiment equally erroneous. By taking too 
exclusive a view of the agency of divine grace in the work of 
conversion, Calvin was led to make rash statements on the subject 
of predestination : by unduly magnifying man's part in that work, 
anti-Calvinists have verged towards Pelagianism. It must not, 
then, be thought necessarily a trifling difference, or one of words 
merely, when we say that the controversy between Eomanists and 
Protestants, in reference to the idea of the Church, is reducible to 
the question, Does the true being of the Church lie in its external 
characteristics, or in its unseen life? or, to put the same question 
in another form, Is the life within the foundation and source of 
that which is visible in the Church; or, on the contrary, is that 
which is visible the foundation and source of the life within? 
Questions, which are by no means decided by the bare aeknow- 



POINTS OF AGREEMENT AND DIFFERENCE. 75 

ledgment on both sides, that the Church, according as it is regarded 
from different points of view, is both visible and invisible. 

If confirmation of this mode of stating the real question at issue 
be needed, it will be found in the following statements of the same 
trust-worthy expounder of Komanism, to whom allusion has been 
already made: — "This," says Bellarmin, "is the distinction be- 
tween our view and that of the Protestants, that they, to consti- 
tute any one a member of the Church, require internal virtues, 
(?'. e. the work of the Spirit in the heart,) and consequently make 
the true Church invisible: we, on the contrary, believe indeed 
that all internal graces, faith, hope, charity, &c, will be found in 
the Church, but we deny that to constitute a man a member of the 
true Church, any internal virtue is requisite, but only an external pro- 
fession of the faith, and that participation of the sacraments which 
is perceptible by the senses" (i. e. which is merely outward).* 
Which, as is evident, is equivalent to saying, that Protestants 
make the inward fellowship of the Spirit essential, Eomanists non- 
essential, to the idea of the Church in its truth. 

In conclusion, it may be proper to remind the reader, that both 
parties accept the statements of the three creeds on the subject of 
the Church, however different may be the interpretation of them 
which they respectively adopt. Both parties believe in the exist- 
ence of the "one Holy Catholic Church," though they may not 
attach exactly the same meaning to that article of faith. Nor are 
we compelled to adopt any particular interpretation of it, as the 
only admissible one. It may be true that the fathers generally 
expound it in a particular way, and that their expositions deserve 
our respectful attention : but before the Protestant can attribute a 
binding authority to them, he must be assured, first, that the 
creeds are the production of, not merely Apostolic times, but of 
the Apostles ; and secondly, that the fathers are to be considered as 
unerring expounders of the meaning of these formularies. It is 
needless to say that neither of these positions can be established. 
While it is very probable that the Apostles employed some short 
summary of the principal articles of the Christian faith, as a form 



* De Eccles. Mil. c. 2. As this passage contains the hinge of the whole controversy, ;\u 
original is here subjoined. " Hoc interest inter sententiam nostram, et alias omnes, quod 
omnes aliae requirunt internas virtutes ad constituendum aliquem in ecclesia, et propterea 
ecclesiam veram invisibilem faciunt ; nos autem et credimus in ecclesia iuveniri omnes vir- 
tutes, fidem, spem, caritatem, et creteras ; tamen ut aliquis aliquo modo dici possit pars verne 
ecclesise, non putamus requiri ullam internam virtutcm, sed tantum cxternam prol'essioneoi 
fidei, et sacramentorum communionem quae sensu ipso percipitur." 



7b CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

of baptismal confession,* we have no certain evidence that the 
creed which now passes under their name proceeded from them : 
the fable of each of the twelve having contributed an article to it 
having been long since exploded. Indeed, the loose manner in 
which the earliest fathers recite the baptismal confessions used in 
their times, and the variations which occur in these summaries 
themselves, sufficiently prove that no fixed form of the kind really 
descended from the Apostles : otherwise, it would have been pre- 
served with the same jealous care with which the New Testament 
Scriptures themselves were. With respect to the particular article 
in question, internal evidence would lead us to assign to it a later 
date than to the rest of the creed ; for it would hardly have been 
deemed necessary to make the Church an article of faith, until its 
existence seemed endangered by heresies and schisms. This sur- 
mise is confirmed by historical testimony. No trace of the article 
is found before Tertullian, who, however, alludes to it as, in his 
time, forming part of the profession of faith made at the baptismal 
font. From Cyprian downward, it is certain that it had a fixed 
place amongst the baptismal interrogatories.-)* As to the expo- 
sitions which the fathers give of its meaning, it is obvious that we 
are no more bound by them, than we are by their interpretations 
of the article which speaks of " the forgiveness of sins." 

* Traces of such a summary may be thought to be visible in Scripture itself. Compare 
1 Cor. xv. 3, 4, and 1 Tim. iii. 16. 

t " Sed et ipsa interrogatio quae fit in baptismo testis est veritatis. Nam cum dicimus, 
Credis in vitam aeternam et remissionem pec catorum per sanctam ecclesiam ?" &c. (Epist. 
70. Edit. Baluz.) The various reading which Cyprian here presents us with is worthy of ob- 
servation. 



PART II. 

DISCUSSION OF THE QUESTION. 



CHAPTEK I 

METHOD OF THE INQUIRY. 

The foregoing observations have done little more than put lis 
in possession of the fundamental difference between the Eomish 
and the Protestant idea of the Church, as expressed in the defini- 
tions adopted by the two parties : the inquiry now about to be 
instituted relates to the truth or error of these definitions. The 
Romanist defines the Church by its outward, the Protestant by its 
inward, characteristics : the former makes its essence to consist in 
its visible rites and polity ; the other holds that its true being lies 
in its spiritual, and therefore unseen, union with Christ. Which 
of these views is the true one ? This is the question now 
before us. 

But here the previous question meets us, What are we to re- 
gard as the authoritative source of truth in matters of religion ? 
C^HXhati.test arejwe to try doctrines which present themselves to 
us with, as far as human authority is concerned, equal preten- 
sions ? A question which itself is differently answered by Ro- 
manists and Protestants. And here, in truth, lies the real difficulty 
of their arriving at any mutual understanding. We differ from 
Romanists, not merely on this or that particular point of doctrine, 
but upon the ultimate authority by which all doctrinal statements 
are to be tried. Ever since the Council of Trent decided that 
ecclesiastical tradition is to be regarded as of equal authority with 
Scripture,* and consequently of equal force in proof of doctrine, 
there has existed an apparently insuperable impediment to a 
reconciliation between the two parties : for, before such can take 
place, one or the other must abandon that which constitutes the 
formal principle of its system ; on the Romish side, the doctrine 

* " Omnes libros tam veteria quam Novi Testamenti . . . necnon traditiones ipsas, turn 
ad fidem, turn ad mores portinentes . . . pari pietatis affectu et reverentia suscipit ot 
v eueratur CSy nodus.)" 8ess. -tta. 



78 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

of an unwritten word of God ; on the Protestant, the supreme 
authority and sufficiency of Holy Scripture in matters of faith. 
The source of revelation, the principium cognoscendi in religion, 
is not the same to both ; hence it should seem that every attempt 
to reconcile their differences must prove abortive. Komanists 
must give up their doctrine of tradition, — that is, become Pro- 
testants, — or Protestants must receive it, — that is, become Ko- 
manists, — before the argument can be conducted on any common 
basis : hence the inconvenience, constantly felt, of arguing with 
Eomanists on particular points of the controversy, before the 
great question of the rule of faith is settled. 

In this point, too, lies thefere at disti nction between the doc- 
trinal system of the fifth and sixth centuries and later Romanism. 
The impulse, which recent events have in this country communi- 
cated to the study of the patristic remains, has had the effect of 
dissipating the illusive splendour with which it had become the 
custom to invest the early Church, and of teaching us that, even 
in the time of Cyprian, the principles, of which Tridentine Ro- 
manism is the mature development, were actively at work in the 
Christian body. On one important point, however, we can claim the 
great divines of the period just mentioned as our own : they, with 
us, taught the supreme authority of Scripture in contr oversies of _ 
faith. What Cyprian and Augustin call Apostolic traditions, are 
either the writings of the New Testament themselves, and the 
fundamental articles of the Christian faith, as expressed in the 
Apostles' Creed ; or the few regulations of polity, such as episco- 
pacy, which could be really traced up to Apostles. Neither of 
these eminent fathers felt any scruple in recommending a depart- 
ure from ecclesiastical custom, however ancient, when it appeared 
to them to be inconsistent with the Word of God.* If they laid 
the foundations of the Church system, they did so on Protestant 

* "Nee consuetudo quae apud quosdam direpserat impedire debet quominus Veritas 
praevaleat et vincat. Nam consuetudo skie veritate vetustas erroris est. Quam veritatem nobis 
Christus ostendens in evangelio suo dicit, Ego sum Veritas. In cpmpendio est apud 
religiosas et simplices mentes et errorem deponere et eruere veritatem. Nam si ad divina 1 
traditionis caput et originem revertamur, cessat error humanus. Quod et nunc facere oportet 
Dei sacerdotes praecepta divina servantes, ut si in aliquo nutaverit et vacillaverit Veritas, ad 
originem dominicam et ad evangelicam atque apostolicam traditionem revertamur." (Cyp. 
Epist. 74. ad Pomp.) What Cyprian means by "Apostolica traditio" appears from the in- 
stance that immediately follows : — " Traditum est enim nobis quod sit unus Deus et Christus 
unus, et una spes, et fides una, et una ecclesia, et baptisma ununi." Compare Augustin, 
Cont. Cres. lib. ii. s. 39. "Nequo enim sine causa tarn salubri vigilantia canon ecclcsiasticus 
constitutus est, ad quern ccrti prophetarum et apostolorum libri pcrtineant, quoa omnino 
judicare non audeamus, et secundum quos de caetcris littcris vcl fidelium vel infidelium libera 
judicemus." 



METHOD OF THE INQUIRY. 79 

principles : they appealed to Scripture in support of their views ; 
nor did it ever occur to them that the inspired writings were not 
both clear enough to convey their meaning to an unprejudiced 
mind ; and full enough to need no supplementary additions. We 
may, indeed, sometimes question the soundness of their interpret- 
ations of Scripture ; we may be at a loss to conceive how Cyprian, 
for example, could have persuaded himself that, according to the 
Apostles' teaching, Christian ministers are sacrificing priests, and 
the Eucharist a proper sacrifice: it is certain, however, that by 
Scripture only, in the last resort, they professed to be guided. 
In this, as in many other instances, Protestantism, not less than 
Eomanism, can draw its own proper nutriment from the records 
of Christian antiquity. 

tin th e following pages, the jorrnfl,] pr inciple of Protestantism — / 
viz. that Scripture is the only authentic record we possess of / 
what Christianity was intended to be by its Divine Founder — j^ ^° \Jf^ 
assumed as admitted ; the discussion of it belonging to another 
branch of the Eomish controversy. Even to the Eomanist it 
must ever be a matter of importance to endeavour to prove that 
Scripture is on his side ; for if he will not allow that it is the .1 ~^^ 
only authentic record which we possess of Apostolic teaching, 
he has not yet advanced so far as to deny that it is an un- 
doubted record of that teaching, and, as such, entitled to high 
consideration. Indeed, a lurking sense of the inconvenience of 
appearing to contradict Scripture betrays itself in the trouble 
which Komish controversialists often give themselves, of adducing 
scriptural proof for the distinctive tenets of their Church; a 
labour which, on their principles, must be regarded as superflu- 
ous, since the doctrine of the infallibility of the existing Church 
is sufficient to sustain the weight of any superstructure that may 
be raised upon it. Moreover, it must be remembered that, 
throughout the present work, the particular object aimed at is, 
not so much to encounter Eomanism in its concrete and mature 
form of the Papacy, as to investigate the interior principles upon 
which the sj^stem rests; principles which pervaded the Church 
long before the Bishop of Eome proclaimed himself her visible 
head, and which are now, amongst ourselves, at work in quarters 
where Eomanism, as such, is rejected, and the patristic doctrine 
of the supremacy and sufficiency of Scripture has not as yet been 
abandoned. With those who belong to this school of theology, a 
purely scriptural argument may still be supposed to possess some 
weight. 



80 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

Scripture being recognised as the authoritative source of divine 
truth, it still remains to select the particular method to be followed 
in conducting the inquiry. It does _ not appear, then, that the 
question before us can ever be satisfactorily decided by a logical 
discussion of texts, extracted from the sacred writipgs. Tbr by M 
priori considerations drawn from the nature of the case. Indeed 
the arguments of the latter kind which Eomanists are so fond of 
urging are, for this reason among others, irrelevant to the ques- 
tion, that they prove nothing but what is fully admitted by the 
opposite party. For example ; we are reminded that the essential 
distinction between natural and revealed religion is, that the 
former rests merely upon a subjective basis, while the latter ap- 
peals to external credentials, and comes to man from without; 
that is, proposes itself to his acceptance as a system of facts, doc- 
trines, and ordinances, which remain what they are whether he 
accept them or not, and possess an objective existence, external to 
the human mind. Thus Moehler, arguing against the Protestant 
doctrine — that the invisible Church (to adopt the usual, but in- 
accurate form of expression) is the basis of the visible, — di- 
rects our attention to the fact that "when Christ began to preach 
the kingdom of Grod, it existed only in Himself, and in the Divine 
idea. It came to men from without ; first to the Apostles, whom 
the Divine "Word, in human form, prepared, by means of instruc- 
tion and discipline, for their future office : afterwards, by means of 
the Apostles and their successors, it was proposed to the accept- 
ance of the world at large, which, as had been the case with the 
Apostles themselves, received the message of Salvation from with- 
out, antecedently to its being grafted in the heart. Thus the rule 
was, that the invisible Church was called into existence by the 
visible, the former being subsequent, in order of time, to the lat- 
ter. This order of things was rendered necessary by the very 
notion of an external, historical, revelation ; which seems, from 
its nature, to require a fixed external ministry of the word, to 
which every one, who would make himself acquainted with the 
revelation, may have recourse for instruction." * Or, again, much 
stress is laid upon the fact that in the Christian dispensation the 
" Word" is seen becoming "flesh," Deity and humanity coalescing 
into an inseparable union. "Had the Word, instead of becoming 
corporeally visible, insinuated Himself in an invisible manner 
into the hearts of men, it would have been consistent that He 

• Symbolik, p. 426. 



METHOD OF THE INQUIRY. 81 

should found a mere invisible Church : but when He manifested 
Himself under a visible form, and acted and suffered as a man, He 
intimated, in a manner not to be mistaken, what, after His de- 
parture from earth should be the nature of the means employed 
to set forward His saving work in the world. The preaching of 
the Gospel required human preachers : man must, as in the sphere 
of ordinary life, teach man. And, as in common life, no valuable 
results are obtained without combination, Christ also, in accord- 
ance with the order of nature, instituted a society of His followers, 
closely compacted and visible, in which He still lives upon earth, 
and which is the organ of His Spirit. Considered from this point 
of view, the Church may be said to be the perpetual incarnation of 
Christ upon earth ; as indeed it is styled in Scripture, His body." * 
Or, finally, it is urged that all religions which have exercised any 
considerable sway over mankind have been enshrined in a frame- 
work of visible institutions, without the sheltering aid of which 
they could not have maintained themselves for any length of time. 
Whether we survey the religions of the East or the West, the 
speculative theosophy of the Hindoo, or the more sensuous mytho- 
logy of ancient Greece and Eome, we find the national faith em 
bodying itself in fixed visible institutions, with a prescribed cere 
monial and a fixed polity. In no other way can a religious system 
exert an effective control over the corrupt propensities of human 
nature. For man is a being composed both of body and of spirit ; 
and therefore, he needs, if the whole of his nature is to be in 
fluenced, an outward ceremonial, as well as the invisible worship 
of the heart. 

(Considerations of this kind may, indeed, be urged with effect 
against the principles of Quakerism, but they [are whol ly irrele- 
vant to the real point in dispute between Eomanists and Protes- 
tants. What Protestant denies that the Holy Spirit works not, 
ordinarily, save through external instruments, namely, the preach- 
ing of the Word, and the sacraments ; or that Christ intended His 
followers to form a visible Church ? In fact, it especially concerns 
the Protestant that the great truth be not forgotten, that revealed 
religion, as distinguished from natural, must come to man from 
without, and present a system of truths which he is to receive, not 
frame for himself. For it is one of the distinctive features of Pro- 

* Moehler, Symb. p. 337. This notion of the Church's being the perpetual incarnation of 
Christ upon earth is a favourite one with the modern school of philosophical Romanists. It 
forms the basis of the so-called "sacramental theory," and of every type of doctrine which 
makes the Church to be the " representative" of Christ upon earth. 

6 




82 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

■ 

testant theology, as distinguished from that of Kome which has 
always been Pelagian in its tendencies, that it takes a deep view 
of the corruption of human nature through the fall, and the con- 
sequent inability of man, while destitute of divine grace, to arrive 
at the true knowledge of God. It is the Eomanist, holding as he 
does, that original sin consists merely in a deprivation of the gift 
of original righteousness, superadded, as a separable thing, to 
Adam's nature; and that, with this exception, man is now in as 
upright a state as he was previously to the fall ;* who is likely to 
undervalue the importance of an external revelation, and to sub- 
stitute for it, when given, the religion of the natural heart. In 
fact, writers have undertaken to prove, and not without success,, 
that the peculiar tenets of Komanism have arisen, not from adher- 
ing too closely to the external record, but from following, in oppo- 
sition to it, the dictates of unenlightened reason.f If the case 
were so, that Protestants rejected all authority in religion save the 
private feeling, or judgment, of individuals, or did away with posi- 
tive ordinances altogether, regarding the Church as a purely invisi- 
ble communion of saints, the & priori arguments just mentioned 
might reasonably be urged against them : but it has been shewn at 
length that a false spiritualism of this kind belongs as little to 
their theory as to that of their opponents. 

(^Reasonings of this kind obviously fail of advancing the question 
a step nearer its solution, and leave us where they found us. pjor, 
as has been observed, is much to be expected from exegetical in- 
quiries into the meaning of certain passages of the New Testament. 
There remains open to us the method of historical inquiry ; or, an 
actual observation of the course which divine revelation has held, 
from the time when it was committed to the custody of the chosen 
people, to its completion in Christianity : and this, in fact, is the 
only method which promises to lead to a satisfactory decision of 
the question under discussion. 

If it be asked, why, we select this particular epoch — vizjjifi 
l ViloJy . establishment of the Jewish dispensation — as the starting-point of 
A the inquiry, neither going back to the first communications of God 
to man, nor at once proceeding to the New Testament, and exam- 
ining what it teaches us concerning the constitution of the Chris- 

* " Quare non magis differt status hominis post lapsum Ada? a statu ejusdeni in puris 
natu/alibus quam differt spoliatus a nudo : neque deterior est humana natura, si culpain 
originalem detrahas, neque magis ignorantia et infirmitate laborat quam esset et laboraret 
in puris naturalibus condita." — Bellarm. De Grat. Prim. Horn. c. 5. 

t See Whately's " Errors of Romanism traced to their origin in human nature." 



iuWUv 



METHOD OF THE INQUIRY. 83 

tian Church ; the answer is to be found, partly in the nature of the 
question before us ; and partly in the peculiar relation in which the 
Christian dispensation stands to the Jewish. The question with 
which we have to do, relates not so much to the doctrines which, 
from the first obscurely intimated, were openly promulgated by 
Christ and His Apostles, as to the society in which the Christian 
dispensation is embodied, its nature and constitution; and before 
the giving of the Law, the people of God constituted no society in 
the proper sense of the word. Previously to that event, indeed, 
intimations had been given, from time to time, to favoured indi- 
viduals concerning the promised Saviour ; and even the first steps 
had been taken towards the accomplishment of the promise, by the 
calling of Abraham, and the constituting of his descendants into a 
distinct people : but it was not until more than four hundred years 
afterwards, when the word of promise had so far taken effect as 
that the posterity of Abraham had, in fact, become a considerable 
people, that anything like a religious society, or polity, of divine 
origin, existed in the world: then, however, such a polity was 
established by the promulgation of the Mosaic law. Ever since 
that time, the people of God have formed a distinct society in the 
world; the features, and constitution, of the society differing, 
according as it was founded upon the principles of the Jewish, or 
the Christian, dispensation. But if, for this reason, it is unneces- 
sary to ascend higher in the history of revelation than the giving 
of the Law, so, on the other hand, \we must, if we would form 
accurate notions of the Christian dispensation, and of the society 
founded upon it, ascertain clearly the nature of the preparatory 
economy, of Moses. For Christianity is the historical offspring of 
Judaism, to which it bears the same relation which the full-grown 
man does to the child.* Christianity is not an isolated phenome- 
non in the history of the world, but the last of a long series of 
preparatory appointments, with which, as might be expected, it 
exhibits points both of agreement and of contrast ; the latter being 
nearly as important as the former. The direction which the pre- 
paratory revelation from the first assumed ; the point to which it 
manifestly tended ; the line of progression in which it moved : — 
these are points which demand our most careful consideration, if 
we would form a right judgment concerning that final dispensation 
which is the consummation of all that preceded it. Thus, to bor- 
row an illustration from the science of physiology, the human 

* See Heb. x. 1. Gal. iv. 1-5. 



84 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

body, the most perfect specimen of animal organisation, is but the 
last link in a long series of developments, which, commencing with 
the lowest forms of animal life, advance step by step to higher 
ones, giving throughout indications of what the end of the series 
will be. Each stage in the ascending scale is an advance upon the 
one that precedes it, and itself serves to prepare the way for a 
still more perfect form; until, at length, those organs, the rudi- 
ments of which were found, in a more or less advanced state, in 
the inferior animals, exhibit themselves in full perfection in the 
frame of man. It is owing to this law of progression that an ex- 
perienced physiologist can often, from an observation of an organ 
in its rudimental state, pronounce, with tolerable accuracy, what 
it would be in its perfect form, even should no actual specimen of 
the latter be in existence. 

(The historical survey which it is thus proposed to take , natu r- 
ally arranges itself under the two great divisions of the old _ and 
new dispensations ; the latter commencing with the outpouring of 
the Spirit upon the day of Pentecost. With respect to the elder 
economy, every reader of the New Testament will have observed 
that, by the writers of the Christian Scriptures, it is viewed, in 
reference to Christianity, under a twofold aspect, according as 
they speak of it as opposed, and as preparatory, to that of the 
Gospel ; a circumstance which is easily accounted for by our dis- 
tinguishing between the law of Moses as it was in itself, and the 
effects which, when viewed in conjunction with that extra-legal 
institute which played so conspicuous a part in the Mosaic dispen- 
sation, — the institute of prophecy, — it was calculated to, and 
actually did, produce upon those who were placed under it. In 
itself, the Law was contrary to the Gospel : in its spiritual opera- 
tion, aided as that was by the prophetic revelation, it prepared the 
way for Christ. A consideration of the law in the former point 
of view will bear indirectly upon the question before us ; for what 
the Law was in itself, we may at once presume the Gospel not to 
be ; while, in its latter aspect, as introductory to Christianity, the 
ancient economy will combine with the New Testament Scriptures 
to furnish the direct portion of the argument. In that part of 
the discussion, then, which relates to the ancient dispensation, the 
leading points of inquiry will be: — the nature and principles of 
the law of Moses, as a religious institute ; the necessary operation 
of it upon the pious part of the Jewish people ; the scope and 
tendency of the prophetic revelation ; and the ministry of John 
the Baptist, together with that of Christ Himself, which may be 



METHOD OF THE INQUIRY. 85 

regarded as the conclusion of the legal economy. In the other 
division of the argument, the subject of consideration will be the 
Christian Church itself, as it appears in the Acts of the Apostles, 
with its sacraments, and so much of its Apostolic polity as is 
found recorded in that inspired history of the first promulgation 
of the Gospel ; the higher stages of its visible organisation being 
reserved for discussion in another place. The structure of the 
Apostolic Epistles, addressed to existing Christian Churches, will, 
in the last place, come under our notice. 



86 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



CHAPTEK II. 

THE JEWISH DISPENSATION. 



Section I. 

THE LAW OF MOSES — ITS NATURE AS A RELIGIOUS S5TSTEM. 

No sooner had man fallen than a promise was given, couched 
indeed in indistinct terms, of a Deliverer to come, who, Himself 
"the seed of the woman," should " bruise the serpent's head," 
and restore man to the state of dignity and happiness which he 
had forfeited through sin. The event predicted in this original 
prophecy — viz., the coming of Christ in human nature — is 
thenceforward the scope of all revelation, the central point of 
God's providential dispensations. 

Why more than 4000 years were permitted to elapse between 
the giving of this promise, and its fulfilment, must ever remain a 
mystery not to be perfectly fathomed by human reason. Mean- 
while, we may be certain that the advent of the Messiah was de- 
layed no longer than was necessary ; and [one, at least, ^f the 
rea sons of the delay wje^mayj^easoj^^ to be, the neces- 

sity w^ici^existed of men's p assing through a process__ofj3re- 
paration to fit them to receive the Gospel. The sacred history 
teaches us that the effects of the fall were speedily visible in the 
universal corruption of mankind. The knowledge of the true 
God, with His attributes and perfections, being lost, and no 
standard of right and wrong presenting itself save the imperfect 
"work of the law written" on the natural heart, the world, as 
might have been anticipated, became, not only fearfully depraved, 
but likewise, with few exceptions, unconscious of its fallen state, 
and therefore indifferent to the means of recovery from it. Had 
the Saviour appeared amongst men at this stage of their moral 
progress, He would have found them wholly unprepared for the 
reception of the truths which centre in his Person and work. 
Hence, the course pursued by the Divine wisdom was, to lead our 
race through a gradual course of preparatory training, by means 
of which the most influential portions of it, at least, might be 



THE LAW OF MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 87 

fitted to embrace the Gospel whensoever it should please its 
Divine author to propound it to their acceptance. 

(As regards the heathen world, this process of preparation was 
merelyjiegative. The heathens were left to themselves, in order ^^aj^ « 
that ; by actual experience, they might become convinced of man's 
inability to raise himself to God. A conviction of man's moral 
weakness, and of the folly of the popular systems of idolatry, 
together with a general craving, amongst earnest inquirers, for 
some unquestionably Divine revelation to remove the obscurity 
which hung over their present condition and future prospects ; — 
this was the amount of illumination, if it may be so called, vouch- 
safed to the pagan world. Enlightened heathens, at the period 
when Christ came, were prepared to receive Christianity, simply 
because every school of philosophy, and every mythical system, 
had confessed its insufficiency to meet the spiritual wants of man. 

But it is obvious that something more than this was necessary 
to secure a footing for the Gospel scheme, whenever it should be 
promulgated. (Thexe_nee^d_tc^^st_somewhere a positive ground- 
work of religious illumination, with which Christianity might 
connect itself; a rudimental outline of which Christianity should 
be the filling up. Especially was it desirable that such a basis of 
religious knowledge should exist in that particular locality in 
which the promised Saviour was to be born, and where His earthly 
pilgrimage was to run its course. Such a favoured spot would 
form a nucleus whence the rays of Divine light might be dissemi- 
nated throughout the world. 

/This special, and positive,., p reparation for the introduction of 
Christianity wj£-£j(fected by an immediate interposition of God 
One people, while yet in the loins of its progenitor Abraham, was 
selected from the nations of the earth, to be the repository of such 
revelations concerning Himself, and His designs, as it should 
please God to communicate. At a period when, probably, idolatry 
had become universal, Abraham, the father of the chosen people, J 
was separated from his country and kindred, and with his pos- ' -^ V 

terity, made the subject of a special covenant with God. In due 
season, when the descendants of the Patriarch had become suffi- 
ciently numerous to form a distinct nation, they were led forth, 
under the conduct of Moses, from their place of temporary sojourn, 
and put in possession of the land promised to their fathers. At 
the same time, they received from God, through the mediation of 
Moses, that code of law, civil, moral, and ceremonial, under which 
they continued to exist, until the temple of Jerusalem was de- 



88 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

stroyed. It was amongst this people, thus placed under a peculiar 
economy, that Christ, when He should appear, was to find existing 
such a measure of religious knowledge, and such elements of reli- 
gious feeling, as should make the transition from Judaism to 
Christianity easy and natural. Upon the nature and principles 
of the law of Moses, as a religious institute, we are now to make 
some observations. 

To prevent the doctrine of the Unity of the Godhead from being 
lost amidst the corruptions of heathenism; to provide a keeper 
and witness of the ancient oracles of God; to be a schoolmaster to 
lead the Jew to Christ: — these are acknowledged to be the prin- 
cipal ends which God had in view in the constitution of the Jewish 
people and polity. The question now before us is, On what prin- 
ciple was that polity constructed, so as to bring about the proposed 
ends? 

A legal dispensation is, as its name imports, one, the pervading 
principle of which is to work from without inwards, or to form, 
by means of discipline and habituation, certain habits of thought 
and feeling in those who are placed under it. The term "law" in 
its proper meaning, and especially as it is used by St. Paul in his 
Epistles, denotes a rule of conduct, whether external or internal, 
which, deriving its authority from some superior power, operates 
upon the subject by constraint, and, therefore, presupposes a cer 
tain degree of indisposition towards its requirements ; or, at least, 
a feebleness of moral self-determination which needs an external 
prop to support it. When, therefore, we speak of an inward law, 
or of a man's being a law to himself, we use language which, 
however intelligible, is not strictly accurate ; for, properly speak- 
ing, that only is a law to a man which, whether it concern itself 
with overt acts only, or (which human laws never do) with the 
inward intention, comes to him from without, and is supposed not 
to be coincident with the will. Hooker, in the following passage, 
accurately points out the province of law: — "Laws politic" (the 
observation applies equally to all kinds of law), " ordained for 
external order and regiment amongst men, are never framed as 
they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be inwardly 
obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience unto the sacred 
laws of his nature ; in a word, unless presuming man to be, in 
regard of his depraved mind, little better than a wild beast, they 
do accordingly provide, notwithstanding, so to frame his outward 
actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common good for 



THE LAW OF MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 89 

which societies are instituted."* And a far greater authority than 
Hooker reminds us, that '•' the law" (so far forth as it is law) " is 
not made for a' righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, 
for the ungodly, and for sinners."f 

The mode of operation peculiar to a legal system is, as has been 
observed, from without inwards, or by external discipline. Pre- 
supposing, either that the natural bent of the will is opposed to 
the things enjoined, or that the moral judgment is immature and 
needs direction, it proposes, by means of a forcible pressure from 
without, to impart the required bias. Instead of presuming the 
will to be rectified, it aims at subduing it to that of the lawgiver. 
Its primary object is, rather to form, than to direct, the internal 
habit. Hence, when a religious system is constructed on the legal 
principle, it contents itself, at first, with prescribing the outward 
act, and with external obedience, careless of the motive whence 
that obedience springs, whether fear or love : it lays down par- 
ticular rules, enjoins specific acts of religious worship, appoints 
"days and months and times and years," instead of general prin- 
ciples issues particular enactments, and regulates from without 
the manner in which God is to be served. Its appointments 
necessarily wear an arbitrary and artificial aspect; for the inten- 
tion being to curb the irregular propensities of the undisciplined 
heart, and to give a specific direction to whatever feelings of a 
pious nature may be in existence, positive enactments, the reason 
of which is not apparent to the worshipper, must be multiplied, 
and the more arbitrary these enactments, the better adapted are 
they to secure the proposed end. The unchastised will must be 
met, and overcome, by provisions which may seem to have no 
other recommendation than that they run counter to the will, and 
by so doing tend to make it pliable. 

On the other hand, it is evident that where internal habits of 
true piety are supposed to be present, and the command, instead 
of standing over against the individual, is, in Scriptural language, 
" written upon his heart ;" where the will of man and the will of 
God are supposed to be in unison, and, therefore, moral precepts 
take the place of legal enactments, and specific prescriptions give 
way to general principles; — the law, though it may still be in 
force, loses its proper character, and the religious dispensation, of 
which these are the characteristics, is so far opposed to a legal one. 

The nature of a legal system may be illustrated from the in- 

* Eccles. Pol. book i. ex. 1 1 Tim. i. 9. 



90 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

stances of it which the common course of nature supplies. Thus, 
as Hooker remarks, political government is conducted on the le^al 
principle. The legislator enjoins, or prohibits, what he conceives 
to be conducive, or injurious, to the well-being of the state, enforc- 
ing his enactments by temporal sanctions ; and his whole work 
proceeds on the supposition of there being either no spontaneous 
direction of will towards what is required, or none such as can be 
safely left to itself, on the part of the governed. The law antici- 
pates resistance to its requisitions, or, at least, an unwillingness to 
comply with them ; and it secures obedience, by making the con- 
sequences of transgression so formidable as to outweigh the grati- 
fication derived from the indulgence of passion. In order, however, 
to gain a true analogy between a religious, and a political, system 
of law, we must turn, not so much to modern theories of govern- 
ment, which teach us that the office of the legislator is negative 
rather than positive, and is concerned chiefly with the protection 
of life and property, and the removal of hindrances to the national 
progress ; as to the ancient notion of a State, according to which 
the latter is to be regarded as a school of virtue, and its laws as an 
educational discipline, for the citizens ; — such an idea as floated 
before the mind of Plato when describing his imaginary republic, 
and of Aristotle * In actual history, the legislation of Sparta, and 
the effects which it is said to have produced upon the national 
character, present the most remarkable instance on record of the 
nature and operation of a system which proposes to work upon 
man from without inwards. 

More to the point, as being of a more internal and positive char- 
acter, is the illustration furnished by the work of educating the 
young, especially that part of it which consists in moral discipline, 
and the formation of character : indeed, the analogy between the 
office of a schoolmaster, and that which the law of Moses dis- 
charged towards the Israelites, is distinctly recognized in Scrip- 
ture.f The process of education is conducted, especially in its 
elementary stages, upon the legal principle. Discipline, and habit- 
uation are the teacher's main instruments. All that he expects, at 
the commencement of his operations, to find present in his pupil, 
is, innate capacities upon which virtuous habits may be ingrafted ; 
the habits themselves — such, for example, as truthfulness, honour, 

* MaprvpcT 6't koX rd yiv6yitvov iv raX<; t:6\c<tiv' ol yap vopoOerai rowj woXirat cdi^ovrtf 
voiovciv dyaOovi' koi tu y&v 8ov\rifta Trairdj vopodcTOv tovt tariv. Ethic. Nic. 1. 2. C. 1. 
t Gal. iv. 2, 3. 



THE LAW OP MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 91 

patience, self-restraint, and attention — he proposes to form by 
degrees, to work into the character by a course of suitable dis- 
cipline.* He begins by laying down specific rules, to which he 
requires unquestioning obedience. Those virtuous acts which a 
man of mature moral training performs spontaneously, the teacher 
compels those placed under his care to perform, in order that he 
may thus strengthen the immature principles of good implanted in 
the heart. While the moral sense is as yet feeble, he connects the 
idea of present suffering with vice, and present enjoyment with 
virtue ; a mode of treatment which is laid aside in proportion as 
the pupil advances in judgment, and in quickness of moral percep- 
tion. As regards merely intellectual habits, he is satisfied at first 
with the opus operatum, knowing that, from the constitution of our 
nature, what, at first, is an irksome labour, becomes by habit, a 
source of positive pleasure. The less the power of self-direction 
supposed to be present in the pupil, the more are external enact- 
ments multiplied, so as to hem him in on every side, to leave as 
little as possible to his own discretion, and so to supply as far as it 
is possible to do so, the lack of fixed internal principles. At this 
stage of his moral progress, the pupil is kept in the path of duty 
by an outwardly coercive law, or is under a legal system. 

It is obviously accordant with the character of such a system 
that it should appeal to the baser, rather than to the more elevated, 
motives of our nature; that fear, rather than love, should con- 
stitute its constraining power. The will of the legislator, and that 
of those for whom he legislates, not being presumed to be in 
unison, or only imperfectly so, obedience must be secured by 
working on the passions of fear and self-interest : immediate tem- 
poral consequences must be annexed to the fulfilment or the trans- 
gression of the law. Political laws are seldom, if ever, accom- 
panied with the sanction of reward ; but in those cases in which 
the result sought to be attained is of a more refined nature, as, in 
the process of education, it is found advantageous to furnish incite- 
ments to the generous emotions, though the system can never 
quite dispense with those of an opposite character. 

If the reader carefully examines both the structure of the Mo- 
saic system itself and the statements of the New Testament writers 
respecting it, he will find that it was, in all its parts, constructed 
on the principles just described. f~ 

* Ovr apa QUaei ovrt irapa Qvoiv iyyivovrai ai dpcrai, dXXi nt<pvic6ai /icv fyuv 3e(a<r0ai airis, 
TtXeiovnevotf di 6ia rov £0ovy. Ethic. Nic. 1. 2. c. 1. 



92 CHUKCH OF 'CHRIST. 

(jThe economy under which the Jews were placed, was a visible, 
external, Theocracy. When God took the people into covenant 
with Himself, He became their God not only in a religions, but in 
a national, sense : He became their tutelary God, and their king. 
He constituted Himself the supreme civil magistrate of the nation, 
and not only delivered to it the law by which it was to be ruled, 
but charged Himself with the administration of that law. Hence, 
the system presented an example of a perfect fusion of civil and 
religious polity. The same lawgiver framed both the civil and 
the religious enactments: the same volume of inspiration which 
instructed the Jew in his duty towards God, contained also the 
charter of his national privileges. The religion of the Jew was 
not only a religious but a national sentiment ; it was loyalty as 
well as religion. To worship other gods besides Jehovah, was not 
only a sin, but a crime ; a crime lessee majestatis, or of a treasonable 
character, and, as such, justly punishable with death. Warburton 
has pointed out the necessity of a Theocracy of this kind, if idola- 
try, which otherwise does not fall under the cognizance of political 
laws, was to be suppressed by temporal penalties ;* but it may be 
further observed, that, under such a system, religion must descend, 
more or less, from its spiritual and internal character, and present 
itself in the shape of positive enactments, prescribing a certain 
course of external action. When God condescended to become 
both the civil and the religious legislator of the Jews, the religious 
portion of the law was compelled to assimilate itself, to a great ex- 
tent, to the civil, so as to be capable of amalgamation with it, and 
with it to form one homogeneous whole ; otherwise, the two could 
not have been well combined. N o sooner does religion, as in Chris- 
tianity, become enthroned in her proper seat, the conscience, and 
assert her claims to govern the inner man as well as the outward ; 
no sooner does she present herself as a system of " spirit" and of 
" truth ;" than she rises above the sphere of law, and, as is now at 
length understood, cannot be made the subject of legal enactment. 

* Divine Legation, book v. s. 2. It may be remarked that the peculiarity above alluded 
to of the Jewish polity takes from us the power of arguing from it to the duty of the Chris- 
tian magistrate in matters of religion. The Jewish polity stands alone in the history of the 
world, and can have no parallel in any Christian state. It does not follow that because a 
Jewish king, as God's viceroy, was bound to punish idolatry, a Christian government has 
a right to suppress by force what it conceives to be religious error. When it can be shown 
that God has delivered to any Christian state a law prescribing the manner in which He is 
to be worshipped, and made that law part of the civil constitution of the state, appointing the 
magistrate His deputy to execute its provisions, the argument from the Jewish polity may 
stand; but not until then. 



THE LAW OF MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 93 

That the religion of the Jews, when placed under their law (and 
to this early period of their history we must throughout this sec- 
tion be understood as referring), might be susceptible of such en 
actment, it was, so to speak, carnalized,* or framed so as to regu 
late the outward, rather than the inward, man. Hence St. Paul 
describes the Mosaic dispensation, in its legal character, as one "of 
the letter," in contrast with Christianity, "the ministration of the 
Spirit."t Those expositors fall short of the Apostle's meaning, 
who represent him as affirming, merely that under the Gospel we 
enjoy a larger measure of the Spirit's influence than was vouch- 
safed under the Law ; or that the ceremonial of Moses was more 
intricate and burdensome than that of Christ. The difference 
which the Apostle establishes between the two dispensations, is a 
difference in kind. Taken by itself, and without reference to the 
prophetic amplifications of it which were subsequently given, the 
Law was a system of categorical prohibitions and enactments, 
which were to be literally obeyed, and obedience to the letter of 
which was all that was at first required; in other words, in the 
Law the form predominated over the spirit. Under the Gospel, on 
the contrary, the spirit predominates over the letter; or general 
principles are furnished, to be applied to particular cases according 
as they arise, under the guidance of an understanding enlightened 
by the Spirit of God. In the one case, the object was to form 
principles of action ; in the other, it is to direct their application. 
In point of fact, if we look back to 4Jie_p_rovisions of the law 
when it was first promulgated, we find in them little or no refer- 
ence to anything beyond the national worship of Jehovah, as the 
tutelary God of the nation. The proximate object of the divine 
law-giver, as we gather it from the book of Exodus, was the con- 
stitution of a people worshipping, amidst the surrounding abomina- 
tions of polytheism, the one invisible God, according to a pre- 
scribed ceremonial. Abstinence on the part of the people, as a 
people, from idolatry was, in the first instance, all that was re- 
quired. Hence the repeated description of the covenant of Horeb, 
as an engagement, on the part of the Jewish people, to renounce 
the idolatrous practices to which they had been accustomed in 
Egypt, and which they saw prevalent in the nations around them, 
in return for the special protection and favour of Jehovah. " Take 

* "Which stood only in meata and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances" 
(the "elements" or "rudiments" "of the world" alluded to by St. Paul, Gal. iv. 3. CoL ii. 
20.) "imposed on them until the time of reformation." Heb. ix. 10. 

t Cor. iii. 6. Compare Rom. vii. 6. 



94 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your 
God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or 
the likeness of anything which the Lord thy God hath forbidden 
thee ;" " If there be found among you any man or woman that 
hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in trans- 
gressing his covenant, and hath gone and served other gods" &c. :* — 
it is in terms like these that the covenant, in its original form 
as it was delivered at Sinai, is constantly mentioned. Hence, too, 
the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, contrasting the Mosaic 
with the Christian covenant, quotes the prophecy of Jeremiah, 
according to which the latter was to differ from its predecessor, 
as the spirit differs from the form, the inward volition from the 
outward letter. f We look in vain, in the first issue of the law, 
for any requisitions relating to an internal change of heart, or 
that which is comprehended in the term, personal religion. Indeed, 
individuals as such, are never addressed in the books of Moses : it 
is the nation in its corporate capacity that is exhorted and admon- 
ished. Still less are any specifically Christian sentiments — such 
as repentance, contrition of heart, or faith — inculcated as pleasing 
to God. The moral law itself appears in the shape of specific 
prohibitions and commands, bearing upon the external conduct, 
the only exception being the tenth commandment, which forbids 
a sin of the heart: — for it may well be questioned whether the 
command to have no other gods but Jehovah conveyed to the Jew 
of Sinai anything beyond a warning against mixing up the wor- 
ship of other tutelary deities with that of his own. Apparently 
indifferent to the inward state of those for whom he legislated, the 
Divine Law-giver imposed upon them a system of positive ordin- 
ances, by which, in all the functions and relations of life, they 
were constrained, and habituated, to the recognition and service 
of Himself alone. The propensity to idolatry, which the Israeli- 
ties had contracted in Egypt, was met by prohibitions enforced 
by immediate temporal penalties ; and the corrupt will was thus 
brought under a yoke acknowledged, even by the pious Jew, to 
be difficult to bear. 

Of course, the above observations apply to the form z _rather 
than the substance, of the Mosaic law, as delivered at Sinai. The 
substance of the moral law is the same in every age : and in every 
age has comprised the requirements of inward purity, and sub- 
stantial moral duty. Of these no religious system, which had the 



' Deut. iv. 23. and xvii. 2, 3. 



\ Heb. viii. 8 - 10. 



THE LAW OF MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 95 

true God for its author, could be destitute. There can be no 
doubt, therefore, that, even in its first promulgation, the law im- 
plicitly enjoined that spiritual service of the heart which the Jew 
was subsequently explicitly commanded to render. But this was 
an extension of its meaning reserved for future revelations : it did 
not appear in the original form. The commands of the law meant 
more than met the ear of the Jew who had come up from Egypt : 
they involved the whole of his duty towards God and towards 
man. But to draw out the full import of the command, to declare 
its comprehensiveness, and its spirituality, was the province of 
subsequent prophecy ; and we are now speaking, not of what the 
law became in the hands of the prophets, Moses included, but of 
what it was in itself when first given. Just as the subsequent 
revelations concerning the Messiah were but the full expansion of 
the first prophecy delivered to Adam, and yet that prophecy in 
itself conveyed to those to whom it was addressed little beyond a 
vague hope of deliverance from the consequences of sin ; so the 
law delivered at Sinai was rich in hidden meaning, and virtually 
comprised all that was ever required of the Jew, but the full 
import of it was disclosed, not at once, but gradually, according 
as God saw that his people were able to bear it. 

There is a / passage of St. Pa ul, in his Epistle to the Galatians, 
the consideration of which will materially assist us in forming a 
true apprehension of the nature of the Mosaic law. Contending 
against those who taught that justification was to be attained, 
partly by the works of the law and partly by faith in Christ, he 
presses them with the argument that Abraham, the progenitor of 
the Jews, was himself justified by faith, his faith attaching itself 
to the promise of God, freely given, that in him should all nations 
of the earth be blessed. The promise to the patriarch was not 
made dependent upon obedience to the moral law, or indeed to 
any law; he received it simply as a believer; and St. Paul's 
argument is, that "the covenant, that was" thus "confirmed 
before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and 
thirty years after," could not "disannul, that it should make the 
promise of none effect." "Wherefore then," it might be asked, 
" serveth the law ? It was added because of transgressions, till 
the seed should come to whom the promise was made."* It was a 
temporary disposition of God, interposed between the Abrahamitic 
covenant and its fulfilment in Christ ; among other reasons, " be- 

* Gal. iii. 19. 



96 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

cause of transgressions," or in order to restrain the visible out- 
breaks of sin, particularly the sin of idolatry, which, otherwise 
would have desolated the whole face of the world, and left no 
room for the growth of true piety. Not, of course, that this was 
the only purpose of the law, but it was one of the purposes of it. 
In order to effect it, it was manifestly necessary that it should be 
imposed upon the Jews, not as individuals, but as a nation, as a 
civil code under which they were nationally to exist. It is only 
in a politically-organised society that the visible manifestations of 
sin can be made the subject of restraining laws. But the law, 
thus given, was never intended to interfere with the covenant 
made with Abraham, for this covenant was made with the patri- 
arch, not as the representative of the visible, but of the spiritual 
Israel, or of the former only so far as it coincided with the latter ; 
and therefore, as St. Paul argues, it appertains equally to all, Gen- 
tiles as well as Jews, who, by their faith, prove themselves to be 
the spiritual descendants of Abraham* The promise was made 
to Abraham as an individual believer, and, through him, to every 
individual, whether Jew or Gentile, who should follow his faith. 
The law was framed for the Jews, as a nation, and embraced, in 
its regards, both those who had, and those who had not, the faith 
of Abraham ; operating, in the case of the former, as a prepara- 
tory discipline, in the case of the latter, as a curb upon the 
rebellious will, and felt by both to be a yoke of bondage. In this 
point of view the law bore the same relation to the spiritual 
Judaism which was afterwards to merge in the Christian Church, 
which the casket does to the jewel which it incloses, or an exter- 
nal fence to the garden which it shelters. In itself it was inca- 
pable of giving life : it afforded no nutriment to faith except so 
far as its ritual and sacrifices raised an expectation of better 
things to come : but it was valuable as an outward fence against 
the encroachments of heathenism, as a shelter beneath which the 
tender blossoms of religion might flourish and expand. The law, 
in fact, was intended to protect the Christianity of the Old Testa- 
ment, until, in Christ and through the outpouring of the spirit of 
Christ, the latter should attain a strength and maturity which 
would enable it to stand alone. 

That a dispensation, constructed on this principle, and for such 
objects, should work chiefly by the agency of fear, or, in the lan- 
guage of the inspired writers, " gender to bondage," is only what 

* Gal. iii. 7. 



THE LAW OF MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 97 

might have been expected. In such expressions of St. Paul as 
that just mentioned, allusion is made not merely to the fact that 
the law, by requiring more than could be performed by fallen 
man, brought guilt upon the conscience, but to the circumstances 
under which it was given, and the general character of the Divine 
lawgiver's administration of it ; both of which were calculated to 
strike terror into those who were placed under its discipline. The 
manner of its promulgation at Sinai, the " blackness, and dark- 
ness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of 
words,"* was intended to, and did in fact, produce in the minds 
of a people like the early Jews, gross and carnal in their notions 
of Deity, a lively impression of the power and majesty of Jeho- 
vah, and a servile fear of offending Him. And throughout the 
dispensation, especially the earlier part of 'it, when the theocracy 
was exercised more visibly and immediately than at a later period, 
it was the sterner side of the divine attributes which appeared 
most prominently. In executing the sanctions of His law, God 
exhibited Himself to the Jew as a consuming fire. To the effectual 
administering of such a system as that of Moses such a display of 
the divine character was necessary. A stiff-necked people was to 
be disciplined to the yoke of ordinances to which they had been 
unaccustomed, and some of which contravened their favourite pro- 
pensities ; they were to be placed under an external rule of con- 
duct which, at the time when it was imposed, must have been 
extremely distasteful to them ; and nothing, under such circum- 
stances, would have sufficed to secure their submission but a 
strong conviction of the lawgiver's power, and determination, to 
punish disobedience. This conviction was wrought into their 
minds, not only by the awful sights which they witnessed in 
Egypt and at Sinai, but by visible proofs, exhibited from time to 
time, of God's promptitude to notice, and avenge, transgressions 
of His law. Hence such occurrences as the slaughter of 3000 
men for the idolatry of the golden calf, and of a still greater num- 
ber for looking into the ark ; the destruction of " Korah and his 
company," for invading the priest's office, and the plague which 
ensued ; and the various temporal chastisements inflicted upon the 
people for their sins, both during their passage through the wil- 
derness and after they were settled in Canaan. The Israelites 
knew Jehovah chiefly as the righteous administrator of the law 
which He had given them ; jealous of His honour, and quick to 

* Heb. xii. 18, 19. 

7 



98 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

resent injurious assaults upon it; "showing mercy" indeed "to 
thousands of them that" should keep His commandments, but 
" visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the 
third and fourth generation." Every religious system which is in- 
tended to operate from without inwards, or by means of discipline, 
must be satisfied at first with a constrained obedience. 

Not that this was the only aspect in which the Divine character 
was presented to the Jewish people. Whenever Jehovah laid aside 
the character of the tutelary god, and civil governor, of the Jews, 
and appeared as the God of the universe, His gracious attributes 
were unfolded, to sustain and encourage the penitent* Thus, 
when Moses went up a second time to the Mount, to have the law 
reinscribed upon new tables of stone, God revealed himself as " the 
Lord, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in good- 
ness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, and forgiving ini- 
quity, and transgression, and sin."f But the time chosen for this 
remarkable revelation is worthy of observation. It was not given 
at the original promulgation of the law, nor until the determina- 
tion of the lawgiver to uphold its authority had been signally ex- 
hibited in the destruction of the worshippers of the golden calf. 
When the law was about to be reissued, and the covenant renewed, 
it was suitable that the terror-stricken people should be sustained 
by the assurance that mercy and grace, as well as justice and holi- 
ness, were essential attributes of Him who was their King. Here, 
as throughout the Old Testament, it was by the transgression of 
the law, not in the promulgation of it, that a disclosure of the Di- 
vine goodness and mercy was elicited : nor was it the law that gave 
hope of pardon to the penitent, but, as throughout, the distinct 
revelation of prophecy, delivered, in this instance, by the mouth 
of Moses, the great prophet, as well as lawgiver, of the Jewish 
people.^: 

The dealing of God, in his capacity of civil governor, with His 
ancient people, which possibly, on account of the disproportion it 
sometimes appears to exhibit between a sin and its punishment, 
may wear a strange aspect in the eyes of the Christian believer, 
becomes intelligible when we recall to mind the distinctive prin- 

* See Warburton, D. L., b. v. s. 2. -(• Exod. xxxir. 6, 7. 

| Cnlvin well remarks : "Lex misericordioe promissiones passim continet : sed quia sunt 
aliunde ascitaa, non veniunt in legis rationem quum do puracjusnaturasermo habetur. Hoe 
illi tantum tribuunt, ut praecipiat qua? recta sunt, scelera prohibcat, praemiuni edicat 
cultoribusjustitice, poenam transgressoribus minetur: cordis interim pravitatem, quae cunctis 
hominibus naturalis inest, non immutet autcmendet." — Instit. lib. ii. c. 11. s. 7. 



THE LAW OF MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 99 

ciple upon which the elder economy was founded. Law, as an ex- 
ternal rule not yet written npon the heart, places a curb upon the 
ebullitions of a sinful nature, without professing, or attempting, to 
rectify the nature itself: it restrains without renewing. Fear, 
therefore, being the moral engine by which it operates, a dread of 
the consequences of transgression must, cost what it will to en- 
force the lesson, be produced ; and we may be sure that nothing 
short of those terrible visitations, which abound in the earlier part 
of the Jewish annals, would have sufficed to impress upon that way- 
ward people the necessity of implicit submission to the appoint- 
ments of God, even those of them which seemed the most arbitrary 
and positive. On the other hand, it was inevitable that the type 
of religious sentiment produced by such a discipline should par- 
take, more or less, of a servile character ; such, in, fact, as, in con- 
trast with the spirit of Christian piety, it is described by the in- 
spired writers to have been. " The heir, as long as he" was " a child," 
differed "nothing from a servant, though he" was "Lord of all." 

£With the fundamental idea of such an economy, it was quite in 
keeping that a visible symbol of the divine presence should be spe- 
cially connected with a certain locality ; that ajhuman priesthood 
shouTHbe~ appointed to mediate between God and His people ; that 
th^t^nesthopd should be confined to a particular tribe and family, 
and follow the course of natural descent, irrespectively of moral 
qualifications; tha t^ outward lustrations , and "the blood of calves 
and goats," should suffice to cleanse from legal defilement; that par- 
ticular sacrifices should be appropriated to particular transgressions ; 
and that there should be an excessive minuteness, and elaboration 
of detail, in all parts of the national worship. The Epistle to the 
Hebrews teaches us that the Jewish priesthood and ceremonial 
law had a special office of its own to fulfil, — viz. to enforce the 
great truth, that fallen man cannot, save through a mediator, ap- 
proach the divine presence, and to habituate the Jewish mind to 
the ideas of sacrifice, atonement, and purification : but, independ- 
ently of these, its typical purposes, the Levitical ritual was in 
perfect harmony with a legal system of religion. Under such a 
system, the forms of religion are of paramount importance, for it 
is by these forms that the inner spirit is to be called into existence. 
What the Word and the Sacraments are to the Christian, the Law 
was to the pious Jew, — viz. the instrument of the Holy Spirit in 
producing certain inward habits of mind. Instead, therefore, of 
the ritual and polity being the manifestation of the inner life, they 
were to be the means of creating, and cherishing, that life; instead 



100 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

of taking their colour from ; they were intended to give colour 
to, the religious sentiment within : and to enable them to effect 
this object, it behoved them to be rigidly defined, to abound in 
ceremony and to appeal largely to sense. Under such a system, 
the object is, to hold human nature in a fixed mould of religious 
discipline until it has received the desired impression, and imbibed 
the spirit, which lies latent, or imprisoned, in the form : the mould 
therefore must be of inflexible material, and elaborate finish; 
and must press from without upon all parts of the religious life, 
prescribing every function of it, and regulating every detail of 
holy service. Where the inner sentiment is presumed to be in a 
state of childish immaturity, no other course is open to the founder 
of a religious system than to endeavour to supply its place by the 
multiplication of forms : thus he gains at least an external hold 
upon human nature ; he secures a fact of religious worship to be- 
gin with, by means of which (if he has ulterior views of such a 
nature) he may prepare the way for the introduction of a more 
spiritual system. Hence it is that the same characteristics (as re- 
gards the points above mentioned) which the Levitical worship 
presents, are found in most of the systems of Paganism which 
have exercised a lasting sway over mankind ; such, for example, 
as the Brahminical system of India. The constructors of these 
systems, feeling that they must work upon man, if at all, from 
without inwards, delivered the external framework of the religion, 
finished in all its parts, and fixed by law : aiming, by means of 
varied and multiplied observances, and an imposing ceremonial, 
at the gradual formation of the type of religious sentiment, what- 
ever it might be, which it was their object to create. 

Finally, with a correspondence of proportion which at once 
approves itself to the reflecting mind, /the sanctions of the M osaic 
Covenant were exclusively temporal: the rewards and punish- 
ments annexed to obedience and disobedience, respectively, took 
their range within the present life. Indeed, the whole religious 
life of the Jew was one of sight, not of faith ; in which point that 
of the Christian presents a strong contrast with it. Visible mani- 
festations of the Divine presence, a local sanctuary, a histrionic 
worship, and present retribution; — these external aids to piety 
were vouchsafed to the Jew, because in his case the eye of faith 
was too feeble to bear a stronger light. But more particularly : — 
a law which appeals only to a future state of reward and punish- 
ment will never be obeyed, for upon the mass of men considera- 
tions of this kind exercise but a feeble influence. Hence the law 



THE LAW OF MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 101 

of Moses was enforced by temporal sanctions, and by 'them only. 
The tendency, natural to a Christian, to introduce more of Chris- 
tianity, its doctrines and its sanctions, into the Old Testament 
than can be fairly inferred from the declarations of the latter, has 
operated to induce the belief that a doctrine without which Chris- 
tianity would be a shadow, must have formed part of the earlier 
revelation ; but, in point of fact, not a hint is dropped, in the 
promulgation of the law, of a future state of retribution, indeed 
of a future state at all ; nor can any passage be adduced from the 
Pentateuch, in which explicit mention is made of such a state. 
True it is that the " old fathers" did not look only for transitory 
promises, as it is also true that " both in the Old and New Testa- 
ment everlasting*life is offered to mankind by Christ :" but, just as 
the great truths connected with Christ's atonement were not de- 
clared by the law, save in the way of type and figure not at the 
time understood, so the expectations which the "old fathers" 
cherished of a future state of bliss were derived not from any 
puplic revelation, but either, as in the case of Abraham, from 
special intimations given to individuals, or from primitive tradi- 
tion, or from such hints upon the subject as were dropped in the 
Pentateuch, and, still more abundantly, in subsequent prophecy. 
And, after all, it was but a hope which such expressions were 
calculated to raise ; knowledge they could not impart. Some of 
them indeed needed the aid of the Christian revelation to unfold 
their meaning, and were probably, until that revelation was given, 
unintelligible* In short, there is no evidence to prove that the 
doctrine of a future state formed a part even of the popular belief 
until a period of Jewish history considerably later. 

It is well known that this omission in the law of Moses has 
been by the infidel laid hold of as an argument against the divine 
origin of that law ; while by the Christian apologist an exactly 
opposite use has been made of it. And, in truth, if the law had been 
intended to give life, — if it had had an immediate connexion with 
salvation, — the omission might appear strange. Not so, however, 

* For example, the famous passage, Exod. iii. 6. "I am the God of Abraham, the God 
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." To us, who enjoy the benefit of our Lord's exposition of 
this passage (Matt. xxii. 32.) it seems to involve very clearly the doctrine of a future state ; 
but the question is, was the truth contained in it seen before He brought it to light ; and 
especially when Moses first delivered the law ? It may have constituted one ground, among 
others, of a pious surmise; but more that this we cannot affirm. From the words of St. Mat- 
thew which follow, — viz. that " when the multitude heard it, they were astonished at his 
doctrine," it would rather seem that our Lord's exposition of it was new to them. See Mr. 
Davison's remarks on the passage, Discourses on Prophecy, p. 126. 3rd edit. 



102 CHUKCH OF CHKIST. 

if the primary object of it was to afford a temporary shelter to 
religion, and to prepare the chosen people for the reception of that 
better covenant which was to bring life and immortality to light. 
Such was the nature, and such some of the leading features, of 
the Mosaic economy. If it should appear strange \thak ja system, 
so rudimental in its general characteristics, and so manifestly in- 
adequate to express the true relation existing between man and 
his Maker, should have emanated from a Divine source^we^haye 
only to recollect the spiritual condition of the Jewish /people at 
the time when it was impo'sed upon them. At the period of their 
departure from Egypt, the Israelites were a people of such rude 
conceptions, as regards religion, as to render them incapable of a 
more spiritual system than that which they received. The idola- 
trous practices of Egypt had acquired so firm a hold upon their 
minds that it took centuries of discipline, and the temporary dis- 
solution of the whole polity, to purge out the taint. Their notions, 
therefore, of the Divine nature and attributes had become, to the 
last degree, childish and corrupt, and their moral sentiments pro- 
portionally perverted ; for conscience, unless it be vivified with 
just views of the power and holiness of God, offers but a feeble 
resistance to passion, and soon learns to call evil good and good 
evil : idolatry and a vitiated standard of morals are always found 
to go together. Both as regards religious knowledge, therefore, 
and moral sentiment, the Jews, at the time when they were placed 
under their law, were in such a low condition that no other system 
could have produced any impression upon them ; unless, indeed, 
it had pleased God to deviate from the ordinary course of His 
spiritual dispensations, by dissipating miraculously, and instanta- 
neously, the clouds of spiritual darkness in which, with the rest 
of the world, they were at that time involved. If even after 
centuries of training under his law, the Jewish believer was, as St. 
Paul declares, a child, not yet emancipated from the restraints of 
discipline, we can well conceive that when he was led forth by 
Moses from Egypt, he needed to be dealt with as an infant in 
religion. And as such he was treated. Fenced round on every 
side against the encroachments of heathenism, he was taught the 
elements (aToi%eta) of piety by such means as were suited to his 
infantile capacity; by type and symbol, and, as he was able to 
receive it, by the "line upon line" of prophecy. Meanwhile the 
Theocracy, with its temporal sanctions, never released its hold 
upon him; jealously guarding its pupil until the time should come 
for resigning him to a more efficient Teacher. Nothing more than 
a consideration of the state of the world, even in its more civilised 



THE LAW OF MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 103 

portions, at that early period, is needed to account for the elemen- 
tary character of the elder dispensation. To have promulgated 
Christianity among a people of such gross conceptions as the 
inspired history shows the Israelites to have been in the time of 
Moses, would have been as unsuitable as it would be to plant the 
English constitution in all its integrity among the rude inhabitants 
of some recently discovered island of the Pacific ocean. 

The moral and intellectual condition of the first Israelites may 
also, perhaps, serve to account for the length of time which was 
permitted to elapse between the promulgation of the law and the 
coming of Christ; and which, unless we take this consideration 
into account, may seem unaccountably protracted. In fact, 
nothing is of slower growth than national sentiment, either in 
political matters or in religion. What a length of time have 
some of the most admired structures of modern civilisation taken 
to arrive at their present maturity! It has required the schooling 
of centuries to teach the lessons of political wisdom, and to imbue 
the nation with the spirit of the constitution under which it is to 
live. But in time the lesson is learned. The errors of one gen- 
eration are perceived, and corrected, by that which succeeds ; the 
past supplies warnings for the future ; occasional jarrings in the 
several parts of the body politic lead to a more skilful adjustment 
of them ; and eventually, by slow degrees, an objective type of 
national feeling is formed. So it is in morals, and in religion. 
Slavery is now almost universally reprobated by Christian na- 
tions; but what a length of time elapsed before the spirit of 
Christianity achieved this victory over the corrupt passions of 
human nature. Of still more recent growth is the recognition, 
now become pretty general, of the purely spiritual nature of 
Christ's kingdom, and the consequent unlawfulness of attempting 
to establish it by other methods than those of persuasion and 
argument. The Christians of a future generation will wonder 
how their ancestors could have so far mistaken the spirit of the 
Gospel as to employ pains and penalties as instruments of con- 
version; yet toleration is one of the very latest fruits* of the 
progress of religious illumination. So slow is the process by 
which great truths, rejected perhaps and derided at their first 
promulgation, win their way in spite of opposition, and gradually 
interpenetrate the whole mass of society. When we contrast the 
degree of culture which existed in the Hebrew nation, when first 
placed under its law,* with that to which it was necessary it 

* For a fuller view of the nature of the Mosaic Economy, See the Author's Bampton 
Lectures. 



104 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

should be brought, in order to be prepared for the Gospel reve- 
lation, we shall perhaps no longer consider it strange that many 
centuries had to elapse before the preparatory discipline could 
effect its purpose. 

If the nature of the elder economy has been dwelt upon at 
greater length than its relation to the subject of these pages 
would seem to warrant, it has been not merely on account' of the 
intrinsic interest attaching to the first covenant under which God 
placed his people, but because a true insight into the structure of 
the Mosaic system is nothing less than a true insight into the 
leading ideas which lie at the root of the Romish conception of 
the Church of Christ. Every student of the principal writers 
of the Komish communion must have observed that, in arguing 
in favour of the system of their Church, the analogy furnished by 
the Mosaic dispensation is, as far as Scripture is concerned, the 
stronghold to which they constantly resort. That Christ is a 
lawgiver in the same sense in which Moses was* and the Gospel 
a new law, presenting, in a spiritualised form, the same features 
which the old did; — these are the two main pillars on which the 
Tridentine edifice rests. It would be easy to show that the intro- 
duction of this mode of reasoning was the first symptom by which 
the early Church betrayed its commencing decline from Apostolic 
Christianity, and its entrance upon that downward course which 
finally issued in the Papacy of the middle ages. This is percep- 
tible, not merely in the universal transmutation of the Christian 
ministry into a sacrificing priesthood, but in the general aspect 
which, in the pages of the early Latin fathers, the Church begins 
to assume, as a system of Law; that is, of positive ordinances, 
pretending to a Divine origin, and intended to operate upon man 
from without inwards. And it is a significant fact, that as 
Nitzsch, in his reply to Moehler, has pointed out,f the productions 
in which this view of the Church is most strongly presented are, 
the spurious writings of the second and third centuries ; such, for 
example, as the pretended Apostolical Constitutions. 

" The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by 
Jesus Christ :"J how is it that the Church of Rome expounds the 
opposition here intimated ? It is admitted, indeed, that the Law 
was introductory to the Gospel, and that in several important 

* " Si quis dixerit Jesum Christum a Deo hominibus datum fuisse ut redemptorem cui 
fidant, non etiam ut legislatorem cui obediant; anathema sit"— Cone. Trid. Sess. 6. Can. 21. 
f Protestantische Beantwortung der Symbolik Moekler's, p. 209. 
X John, i. 17. 



THE LAW OF MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 105 

points the latter differs from the former. A new dispensation was 
introduced by Christ, of which the preceding one contained but 
the outline; the one was local, the other is universal; the one 
transitory, the other to last to the end of time; — by the acknow- 
ledgment of such points of distinction as these, the observation of 
the Apostle is, it is conceived, sufficiently explained. Meanwhile, 
no difference in hind is admitted to exist between the two dis- 
pensations. So far from this,^the Gospel, we are told, is a new 
law, presenting, not merely the substance of which Judaism con- 
tained the shadow, but an exact counterpart of the features of the 
ancient system ; so that, instead of the temple at Jerusalem, to 
which the Jews, wherever they might be, looked as the central 
seat of their religion, we have now the Apostolical chair at Eome, 
the centre of Unity to all Christians ; instead of priests by natural, 
we have priests by spiritual, descent ; an unbloody sacrifice takes 
the place of the " blood of calves and goats ;" a graduated hierar- 
chy succeeds to the threefold order of the ancient ministers of the 
altar ; and we have a liturgical ceremonial which, it is avowed, 
finds its "parallel in the worship and ceremonies of the old law, 
ordained by God himself." * 

It is in the Komish theory of sanctification, philosophically con- 
sidered, that the identity of principle between the Law and the 
Tridentine version of the Gospel becomes chiefly apparent. Every 
one acquainted with that theory knows that its ethical basis is the 
Aristotelian doctrine of habits, applied to Christianity. The phi- 
losopher tells us, and tells us truly, that moral habits are formed 
by repeated acts,f the mere rudiment of the habit being that which 
is implanted by nature : if for moral we substitute spiritual habits, 
and for the rudiments of natural virtue, a power of doing holy 
actions, imparted to all in baptism, we have here the Romish doc- 
trine of sanctiflcation in its ultimate form. By acting out the holy 
nature supposed to be at the baptismal font communicated in 
germ, whether in the way of good deeds or of bodily mortifi- 
cations, the Christian grows in grace, and is gradually disciplined 
into the image of Christ: obedience, at first painful, becomes by 
degrees habitual, and at last pleasant. Thus men are now, as of old, 
schooled into religion from without inwards. And the Church is 
the great institution of discipline in which the work is carried on. 
The Church, by her prescriptions and ordinances, operates upon 

* Milner'a End of Controversy. Letter 20. 

j- Ovru) 6i Kal ra pitv idcata npaTTOvres dlxaioi yiv6jitQa y ra 6i <rdj<ppova awfpovtSi ra i'dvSpcia dv6peiot, 
— Ethic. Nic. 1. ii. c. 1. 



106 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

the -undisciplined will of man, and brings it into subjection to 
Christ. In one point, however, there is a wide difference between 
the system of discipline under which God placed the Jews, and 
that to which Christians are subjected ; a difference which makes 
the latter a yoke far heavier than that which preceded it. Burden- 
some as the Jewish ritual was, it was, once for all, distinctly laid 
down in the written books of the law, which lay open to all, and 
from the precepts of which the priesthood was not permitted, in 
the smallest particular, to deviate : a regulation which effect- 
ually nipped the growth of sacerdotal usurpation over the con- 
sciences of men. Whereas, under the new law, the discipline by 
which men are to be made Christians is administered, not accord- 
ing to a well-defined prescription emanating from God himself, 
but according to the varying will of man ; the Christian priest- 
hood, represented in the Pope, possessing a right divine to add to 
the existing law whatever regulations may seem to them proper. 

To those acquainted with the natural affinities existing between 
systems it will be no matter of surprise that, in the point last 
mentioned, an identity of sentiment should appear between the 
theory of Eome and that of the Church system as recently 
revived amongst ourselves : that by a writer of the latter school, 
the Church should be described as an institution which "not only 
forms by an outward and political coercion the exterior course of 
obedience, but shapes by a lighter and unerring hand the full 
lineaments of Christ's image. Its correction reaches the un- 
written moralities: it enters into the inner heart of man; it 
forbids unforgiving thoughts ; it commands a man to render good 
for evil, blessing for cursing ; it obliges him to love God and man, 
and rebukes him if he disobey." (It has been usually supposed 
that these are the commands of Christ himself. But not to dwell 
upon this, it may be remarked that the passage contains, in short 
compass, the natural history of the Confessional.) " By her au- 
thority," we are told, "as God's vicar upon earth, she subjugates 
the whole energy of man which struggles against the will of God. 
By her inward discipline she checks, and, through grace, subdues 
to the conscience the aggressive and importunate affections of our 
nature." " Through the one objective discipline, the will is once 
more enthroned supreme, and its energies united with the will of 
God. Obedience passes, by little and little, from deliberation and 
conscious effort, to a ready and almost unconscious volition." 
" We are placed, as it were, under the discipline of childhood ; M 
i. e., under an outwardly coercive law, like the Jew of old. And 



THE LAW OF MOSES AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 107 

since to a law, if it is not to be a dead letter, there must be added 
a living authority to execute its provisions, we are further in- 
formed that, under the new Christian law, such an authority has 
been actually established, — viz. the clerical order, — which now 
stands to the Christian people in the same relation in which God 
himself did to the Jews ; "God having constituted an order which 
shall bear rule over his people, and shall bring them under the 
yoke of obedience to himself." * A sentiment which the Eomish 
Catechism expresses more succinctly when it tells us, that obedi- 
ence to the Church (by the Church being meant, as usual, the 
Clergy) is one of the chief duties of a Christian nian.f 

It is, in fact, this false view of the Church, according to which 
it is, not a community of those who are Christians, but an insti- 
tution to make men so, that identifies the Church system, funda- 
mentally, with that of Eome, leading both the one and the other 
to transform the Gospel into a spiritualised Judaism. For, as is 
evident, on this supposition the external polity of the Church 
becomes that in which its true being lies ; it becomes, what the 
Jewish law was, the divinely-appointed instrument of the Holy 
Spirit in working upon the spirit of man, by holding, as the sys- 
tem of Moses did, human nature in a fixed inflexible mould. On 
this hypothesis, too, an alteration of the exterior framework of 
the Christian polity is necessarily regarded as equivalent to the 
destruction of the spirit within; for such, in fact, would have 
been the effect of a similar alteration in the case of the elder 
economy. 

This is not the place for the inquiry, how far some particles of 
truth may be contained in the above representations of the func- 
tions of the Church. There is no doubt a sense in which, even 
now, the Christian society is a school of discipline to its members. 
It is especially so to the children and young persons within its 
pale, whose condition, therefore, so far approximates to that of the 
Jew under the Mosaic law. Even towards its adult members, 
especially those of them who are not yet fully under the influence 
of divine grace, the Church — i. e. the Christian community — stands 
in the relation of a school of education operating from without 
inwards. But the difference is this : — the Church, so far as it is a 
school of discipline, a schoolmaster to lead men to Christ, operates 
not, as the Mosaic system did, by means of law, by positive ordi- 

* Manning, Unity of the Church, pp. 230. 251. 254. 

t " Haec autera ecclesia nota est. . . . Nam cum illi ab omnibus parendum sit, 
cognoscatur necesse est." — C. x. s. 11. 



h 



108 CHURCH OP CHRIST. 

nances and outward prescriptions, but by what is comprised in the 
expression, Christian influences, — i. e. the teaching, the life, the 
example, the spirit, the general standard of practice of those who 
compose the Christian community. There is all the difference in 
the world between a system of influences of this kind and a system 
of law. The latter is artificial and arbitrary, the former is natural, 
as being the spontaneous result of the new creation in Christ : the 
latter is fixed, rigid, and unbending; the former is plastic, and 
variable, operating invisibly and insensibly upon those subjected 
to it. It is only in this sense that the Church can be called a 
school of discipline, and in this sense it is so; not, however, any 
particular order in the Church, but the whole society itself. Ac- 
cording to the other view, which regards the Church as an insti- 
tution of legal discipline, the Saviour's prayer, " Sanctify them 
through thy Truth, thy Word is Truth," loses all its import. Not 
faith, but, as of old, the law, purifies the heart ; and, as in the mat- 
ter of justification, the Church, not Christ, is made the mediator 
between man and God, so in the matter of sanctification, the 
Church — i.e. its external system, —not the Word through the 
Spirit, becomes the instrument of the Christian's transformation 
into the image of Christ. 



r. ' '' Section II. 

THE SPIRITUAL OPERATION OF THE MOSAIC LAW. 

When the Komanist presents us with a conception of the Church 
which makes the latter essentially one with the religious polity 
under which the Jew was placed, the question at once occurs, Has 
there been no progression in the course of God's dispensations 
towards our fallen race ; no gradual unfolding of the scheme of 
revelation ; no advance from an elementary to a more mature stage 
of religious knowledge and experience? Did Christ, when He 
came, find the pious Jew no further advanced towards just views 
of religion than his ancestors were at Sinai, and therefore needing, 
like them, in common with his Gentile believing brethren, to 
be placed under a new law, which, like the old, and in the same 
sense, should operate from without inwards? In the following 



SPIKITUAL OPERATION OF THE MOSAIC LAW. 109 

observations, the natural effect of the Mosaic law, when it met 
with a pious and reflecting temper of mind ; will form the subject 
of consideration. We have seen how it operated as regards the 
nation at large, raising up a fence between it and heathenism, under 
cover of which the true Israel might be nursed into a state of pre- 
paredness for Christ : we have now to consider what its effect must 
have been upon the pious part of the Jewish people, the spiritual 
seed of Abraham, which eventually was to form the nucleus of the 
Christian Church. 

The fact is that, as Nitzsch observes in his answer to Moehler,* 
the law must, in the case of the pious Jew, have tended, by a 
natural and inevitable process, to its own dissolution as a system 
of outward prescriptions, and to the substitution of an inward and 
spiritual, for an outward and formal, worship of God. Even during 
its continuance, the letter must have become antiquated in favour 
of the spirit, and the pious Jew could not long have remained a 
legalist. 

"The law was our schoolmaster," — a system of educational 
discipline, — "to bring us to Christ." This it was on account both 
of the elementary knowledge of the Christian scheme which it 
imparted and of the moral dispositions which it produced in those 
cases in which it met with a personal sense of religion. 

And first, as regards knowledge. The law, in its priesthood, 
ritual, and worship, contained a shadow, or faint adumbration, of 
the verities of the Gospel : it is reasonable, then, to suppose that, 
though but " a shadow of good things to come, and not the very 
image of the things," it conveyed to the pious Jew a measure of 
information concerning them, and led . his mind beyond its own 
ritual enactments. How far this information may have extended, 
is one of the most obscure and doubtful questions in the whole 
compass of theology. The remark has already been made that it 
is extremely difficult for the Christian, possessing as he does the 
key to the Levitical ritual, to realise the position of those who, 
living under it, were destitute of this advantage ; the consequence 
of which has been a tendency to attribute to the Jewish believer 
a more accurate acquaintance with the specific doctrines of the 
Gospel than there is reason to believe he actually possessed. So 
far as we have means of judging, it should seem that the specific 
references to the Gospel which the Ceremonial Law contained 
were, during the existence of the Jewish economy, imperfectly, if 

*Prot. licant. &c, p. 195. 






110 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

at all, understood, and that the Levitical types and sacrifices were 
much more a prophecy than an explanation of what was to come. 
The great fact to be here considered is, that neither at the time 
when the Ceremonial Law was given, nor subsequently, was any 
recorded disclosure made of its ulterior signification. Unless, then, 
we conceive that an esoteric doctrine upon this point, not found 
in the Old Testament, was delivered to Moses, and by him handed 
down to future generations, we must admit that the types were to 
the ancient believer a system of ciphers, the interpretation of 
which it needed the Gospel to make known. Moreover, it must 
be recollected that, if the Hebrew worshipper had really been 
acquainted with the latent meaning of the types, the law could in 
no proper sense have been called a schoolmaster to bring him to a 
knowledge which he already possessed. 

It would be, however, an error in the opposite extreme to 
maintain that the ceremonial law afforded no assistance towards a 
perception of the great doctrines of the Gospel. The effect of it 
must have been to habituate the mind of the Jew, not so much to 
any specific doctrine of the atonement, as to the general notion of 
atonement by means of sacrifice, and the necessity of purity in 
those who would approach God. The idea also of mediatorship 
between man and God, on which the Christian scheme rests, must 
have been created, or cherished, by the appointment of the Levit- 
ical Priesthood. In short, the notions expressed by the words 
expiation, atonement, priesthood, purification, and the like, were 
rendered so familiar to the Jew, that when the great doctrine with 
which they are connected was offered to his acceptance, he had 
only to transfer to a new object the old elements of his religious 
life, exchanging at the same time the shadow for the substance. 
And just in proportion as it produced this effect, would the insuf- 
ficiency of the legal sacrifices and lustrations become more clearly 
understood. That they were intrinsically worthless, — that "it is 
,not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take 
away sins;" — this must have become evident to the Jew as he 
advanced in spiritual discernment : and the more this feeling pre- 
vailed, the more would he turn away from the symbolical system 
by which he was surrounded, and feed in faith upon the idea 
which it suggested, the hope which it raised, of some better sacri- 
fice to come, which should really take away the guilt of sin. In 
this way, the very ideas which the ceremonial law prompted must 
have operated to the depreciation of that law in the mind of the 
devout worshipper. 






SPIRITUAL OPERATION OF THE MOSAIC LAW. Ill 

But the law, as has been remarked, was intended, not only to 
symbolize me truths of Christianity, but to be a preparatory dis- 
cipline, by means of which such a disposition of spirit should be 
produced in those placed under it, as should lead to a cordial 
reception of the Gospel whenever it should be proposed to their 
acceptance. This is the second aspect under which we are to 
consider its operation upon the piously inclined Jew. 

The inspired- writings of the Old Testament contained the basis 
of historical evidence upon which Christ's mission was to rest : 
one chief object, as has been remarked, of the selection of the 
Jewish people, being the safe custody of those oracles of God in 
which the leading particulars of the Messiah's descent, of the 
manner of His appearance, of the miracles He was to perform, 
and of the moral features of His doctrine, were recorded, for the 
instruction of the devout expectants of "the consolation of 
Israel;" so that when the latter should appear, He might be at 
once recognised as He "of whom Moses and the prophets did 
write." Our Lord expressly referred to this sort of evidence as 
satisfactory to all candid inquirers. But this was not enough. 
There needed not only a body of external proof which should 
convince the inquiring Jew that Jesus was indeed the Christ ; but 
a preparation of the heart which should predispose him to accept 
the Christian faith when proposed to him. It is a matter of com- 
mon remark, and was signally exemplified in the great mass of 
the Jewish people, that a wrong state of the heart impedes the 
due exercise of the understanding, and that the clearest evidence 
often fails of producing conviction, simply because the truths 
which it establishes jar with the moral habits of the inquirer. It 
was necessary, therefore, that provision should be made for form- 
ing in the serious Jew such moral dispositions as should prepare 
him for the Gospel, and render it an easy act of transition for 
the "Israelite indeed, and without guile," to become a devout 
.Christian. 

With a view to this end a singular provision was made, which 
distinguishes the Mosaic law from all other civil codes, — viz. the 
incorporation in it of the immutable moral law of God, which, 
from the first, though not so distinctly as afterwards, enjoined the 
great moral duties of love to God and to man, and required purity 
of the heart. No human laws have ever attempted to prescribe 
these duties ; and, unless we bear in mind the peculiar character 
of the Jewish economy, we shall be tempted to think them out of 
place in a national code of legislation. Religion, as well as civil 



112 CHUKCH OF CHRIST. 

government, was the object which the Divine Legislator of the 
Jews had in view ; and the latter was throughout framed with a 
reference, and in subordination, to the former. Hence the moral 
law, the proper province of which is the interior obedience of the 
heart, formed part of the national constitution ; and this, as St. 
Paul tells us, for the special purpose of producing conviction of 
sin. "By the law is the knowledge of sin:" it reveals the con- 
demning nature of it : it produces a sense of personal implication 
in it. The application of the moral law to the conscience awakens 
its dormant susceptibilities, irritates the evil nature within, and 
infuses new life into its workings (Rom. vii. 7.) ; but while it thus 
teaches man his guilt and his pollution, it opens to him no means 
of relief; it makes the sinner sensible of his chain, and leaves 
him under it. It is this conviction of sin, or deep feeling of per- 
sonal demerit, which, coupled with a feeling of spiritual helpless- 
ness, constitutes the true preparation of heart for the reception of 
the Gospel; and accordingly, in the discipline under which the 
Jew was placed, provision was made, as aforesaid, for producing 
it. In this particular, as in others, the Jew, from his possessing 
"the oracles of God," enjoyed a signal advantage over the heathen. 
The heathen world, having no knowledge of the moral law except 
what might be gathered from the faint traces of it "written upon 
their hearts," and attested by the accusing or else excusing voice 
of conscience ;* having no express revelation of it which they 
could not modify, or adulterate ; fell into the natural course of 
lowering the requirements of the law so as to come within the 
capacities of fallen human nature. They proposed to themselves 
an ideal of holiness, not such as God requires, but such as they 
felt they could attain to : instead of endeavouring to raise them- 
selves to the law, they brought the law down to their own level. 
Hence, in all the ancient systems of practical philosophy, whether 
as applied to individuals or to communities, confidence in the 
powers of unassisted human nature is the conspicuous and fatal 
defect : in truth, to reach the standard of morals which men had 
framed for themselves, nothing was needed but the strenuous ' 
application of the natural faculties. The Christian sentiment, 
which we call conviction of sin, or contrition, and which consti- 
tutes the essential point of identity between the religion of the 
pious Jew and that of the Christian, never appears in the pages 
of ancient philosophy: the philosophers did not feel that their 

* Rom. ii. 16. 



SPIRITUAL OPERATION OF THE MOSAIC LAW. 113 

inward state was such as called for contrition. From this error, 
so destructive of all true religious sentiment, the Jew was pre- 
served by the incorporation of the moral law, in its proper in 
tegrity, in the written code of Moses : by which means it was 
secured from the fluctuations of human opinion, and rendered 
independent of any subjective standard of moral purity. Even so, 
indeed, the law might be explained away, or superseded by cor- 
rupt glosses, as was actually done by the Pharisees in a later age ; 
but it could not be obliterated from the written record: it re- 
mained there for the instruction, and conviction, of all those (and 
doubtless in each age they were not a few) who, under serious 
impressions of religion, had recourse to the Word of God, with a 
sincere purpose of discovering and obeying his revealed will. 

It needs but a slight acquaintance with the workings of the 
human heart to perceive that exactly in proportion as, under the 
discipline of the moral law, the Jew became enlightened as to the 
spiritual nature of sin, the legal system of religion by which he 
was fenced round would sink in his estimation. For a sense of 
inward defilement in the sight of God necessarily gives rise to a 
desire for an inward cleansing, and renders the mind dissatisfied 
with a mere outward ceremonial. Hence may be explained most 
of the doctrinal differences existing between Protestants and Eo- 
manists. The semi-Pelagianism to which the theology of Trent 
has always inclined, has produced a corresponding tendency to 
dwell more upon the outward than upon the inward side of Chris- 
tianity ; — upon the sacraments, upon the polity of the Church, 
upon the intrinsic value of religious ceremonies, and upon the effi- 
cacy of particular outward acts of piety : naturally so, for the 
idea which is framed of the remedy will always bear a relation of 
proportion to the presumed nature of the disease. The decision of 
the Council of Trent, that " concupiscence hath" not " of itself the 
nature of sin," but is called sin by the Apostle merely because it 
may lead thereto,* or, in other words, that the essence of sin con- 
sists, not in the inward propension, but in the outward act ; and 
the received doctrine of Eomish theologians, that original sin 
consists merely in the deprivation of the gift, superadded to man's 
nature, of original righteousness ; these dogmas sufficiently ex- 
plain, why all the steps of man's restoration from the effects of 
the fall assume in Romanism an external, rather than an internal, 

* " Hanc concupiscentiam, quam aliquandoApostolus peccatum appcllat, sancta synodas 
declarat eccles. Cath. nunquain intellexisse peccatum nppellari, quod vero et proprie in 
Sanctis peccatum sit, sed quia ex peccato est, et ad peccatum inclinat." Sess. v. s. 5. 



114 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

aspect ; why the Sacraments are multiplied, and in the Sacraments 
the opus operatum, or performance of the act, is regarded rather 
than the inward preparation of the heart. To cleanse from an 
external pollution an external ceremonial is very appropriately 
applied. Protestantism, with its deeper view of the effects of the 
fall and the nature of sin, adopts, as might be expected, a more 
inward view of the process of recovery : it teaches an inward, in- 
stead of a sacramental, method of justification (justification by 
faith) ; it subordinates the visible signs of Christianity to the in- 
ternal work of the Spirit of which they are the signs. The same 
must have been the direction of thought in the case of the pious 
Jew. The clearer his insight into the spirituality of the law, and 
the deeper therefore his conviction of sin, the less account would 
he make of a ritual worship, or a legal righteousness. In propor- 
tion as the truth became more vividly felt, that God regards the 
state of the heart more than the outward act, the weakness and 
imperfection of the whole system by which he was surrounded 
would become apparent. Its preparatory, its symbolical, character 
would be a conclusion forced upon him. It offered no adequate 
atonement to take away the guilt, no sufficient help to destroy the 
power, of sin, viewed as the transgression of the moral law ; and 
its insufficiency in these respects must have become clearly dis- 
cerned. The appointments in being, "the gifts and sacrifices" of 
the Levitical ritual, "could not make him that did the service 
perfect as pertaining to the conscience ;" and the cleansing of the 
conscience was that which the worshipper, with his growing spi- 
ritual perceptions, chiefly craved. The devout Jew would still 
scrupulously comply with the ritual forms, prescribed as they 
were by God Himself; but they would be more and more felt to 
be but carnal rudiments : inward purity, and an inward sprink- 
ling from guilt, would come to be with him the main objects of 
desire. In a word, the essential elements of a Christian temper 
would spring up within him ; and while the discipline of the law 
led him to desire, the announcements of prophecy gave him the 
sure promise of, "a better covenant," to be "established upon bet- 
ter promises," and by means of " better sacrifices," than those with 
which "the patterns of things in the heavens" were "purified."* 
It is obvious that the two spheres of operation which we have 
above attributed to the law, would be supplementary, and a mutual 
aid, the one to the other. The convictions of sin, produced by the 

* Ileb. viii. 6 j ix. 23. 



SPIRITUAL OPERATION OF THE MOSAIC LAW. 115 

high, requirements of the moral law, would dispose the Jew to de- 
sire a more perfect atonement than the ceremonial law supplied ; 
and at the same time the ceremonial law itself would give a mute 
promise, or raise an expectation, of some such better atonement: 
and thus both would combine to carry him forward from the region 
of symbol and outward prescription to that of a more spiritual re- 
ligion. 

Even then if we had no evidence of the fact, we should' con 
elude, from a consideration of the effect of the moral and ceremo- 
nial law combined, that, in the case of the pious Jew, it must have 
led to an emerging from the oldness of the letter, into a sphere of 
religion of a more spiritual and interior character. Even the com- 
mon analogies of nature would lead us to anticipate such a result. 
For, to return to those furnished by political systems and the 
work of education, both the lawgiver and the instructor have, in 
placing those for whom they frame enactments under an outwardly 
coercive system, higher ends, ulterior results, in view: the one 
aims at the formation of national, the other of individual, charac- 
ter. And the end aimed at does, in most cases, really follow. Thus 
the mass of floating sentiment which constitutes national character 
is the result of the gradual operation of the laws by which the na- 
tion is governed ; though it is also true that laws are the expression 
of the national character. There is, in fact, a process of action and 
reaction constantly going on; the external enactment giving a 
direction to the national sentiment, and the latter again producing 
such enlargements, or modifications, of the enactment as circum- 
stances may require ; or sometimes even abrogating the original 
letter, to make way for a fitter expression of the spirit embodied 
in it. In like manner, in the work of education internal habits 
are actually produced, in all save the most untoward natures, by a 
judicious system of discipline : custom becomes second nature, 
and obedience, from being a painful effort, assumes the character 
of spontaneous action. Wherever men are placed under an exter- 
nal system, the requirements of which are in accordance with their 
innate moral capacities, the result, sooner or later, is the formation 
of an inner sentiment which, to the individual, abrogates the literal 
prescription, or rather the prescription in its letter. There is no 
reason to doubt that a somewhat similar process must, in the case 
of the devout Jew, have taken place. By degrees, more enlight- 
ened perceptions of religion would take the place of the rudi- 
mental ideas of an earlier age; and a mass of objective religious 
sentiment, true as far as it went, would establish itself in the na- 






116 CHURCH OP CHRIST. 

tional mind. And once the process commenced, it would continue. 
For religion, when, as was the case under the Mosaic dispensation, 
its fundamental conceptions are just and true, is essentially pro- 
gressive; developing surmises into matters of belief, bringing to 
light views of truth before unnoticed, and handing down the stock 
of truth which belongs to each generation to a succeeding one, to 
be added to, or corrected. 

But we are not, in this matter, left wholly to the conclusions of 
reason. One book of Scripture there is, which clearly proves the 
direction which the religion of the early Jews took, — the book of 
Psalms. These inspired compositions may, like the writings of the 
New Testament, be considered under a twofold aspect ; they are 
not only a manual of divine instruction vouchsafed to the church, 
but records of the spiritual experience of the authors : the sacred 
lyrists of Israel expressed their own interior convictions, and feel- 
ings, while penning, as the instruments of the Spirit, hymns for 
the use of God's people in every age. The book of Psalms, there- 
fore, presents us with an authentic picture of the religion of the 
pious Jew, more than a thousand years before Christ. And what 
is its prevailing tone ? Is it a religion of ritual and ceremonial ; 
of rigid exactness in the details of outward service ; but of compar- 
ative indifference to the spirit in which that service was performed ? 
It is needless to observe that the very opposite is its character. 
That the writers of the book of Psalms lived under the law, 
is easily discernible from their compositions; but it is equally 
evident that they were not of the law; that is, that they had 
passed out of the region of a literal symbolical worship, into 
that of spiritual religion. There is, throughout, a studied dis- 
paragement, not of the law itself, but of that legal spirit which 
made more account of the outward lustration than of the 
cleansing of the heart, and was satisfied with the ceremonial rites 
of atonement, without desiring a more efficacious propitiation. 
" Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand 
in his holy place ? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart ; 
who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. 
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness 
from the God of his salvation:" " I will praise the name of God 
with a song, and magnify it with thanksgiving. This also shall 
please the Lord better than an ox or bullock, that hath horns and 
hoofs:" " Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats ? 
Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most 
High :" — this is the general strain of the book of Psalms. That 



SPIRITUAL OPERATION OF THE MOSAIC LAW. 117 

remarkable composition, the 51st Psalm, is of itself sufficient to 
mark the progress which religion had made from the ceremonial 
system of the Pentateuch, to a religion of spirit and of truth. In- 
deed, when we consider the psalmist's convictions of original and ac- 
tual sin ; his feeling that God requires "truth in the inward parts," 
or purity of heart ; his expectation of a more perfect atonement, of 
which he regarded the legal rites as but a figure ; his prayer for 
the restoration of spiritual joy, and for the pardon of sin ; and the 
sentiment to which he gives utterance, that the sacrifice of "a 
broken and contrite heart" is of more value in God's sight than all 
the legal offerings ; we recognise in him a spirit which makes him 
one with us. His religion is essentially Christian, the only points 
of difference being, that the objects of faith are not as yet distinctly 
apprehended, and that the fair blossoms of spiritual religion are 
still sheltered by the outward fence of the law, lest, in their com- 
parative immaturity, they should perish by exposure. Finally, 
religion, as pourtrayed in the book of Psalms, has, as compared 
with its aspect at an earlier period, advanced, not only in its ob- 
jective views of divine truth, but in its subjective character. In- 
stead of being national, or corporate, under which aspect it almost 
exclusively presents itself to us in the Pentateuch, it has become 
personal. The sorrows, temptations, and perplexities; the hopes 
and the joys of the individual believer ; these, and, only in a sub- 
ordinate degree, the fortunes of the nation, constitute the subject 
matter of the sacred songs of Israel. It is the contrast which they 
present in the points above mentioned to the ceremonial character 
of the Mosaic ordinances, that renders it so easy a matter to trans- 
fer these compositions to the uses of Christian worship, both private 
and public. 

We conclude, then, that the law could not, in the nature of 
things, and in fact did not, operate towards the reproduction of 
itself under whatever modification of form : that, on the contrary, 
its inevitable tendency, in the case of the pious Jew, was to anti- 
quate its own mutable and temporary portions, — viz. all that con- 
cerned the external worship of God, and, in place of the artificial 
system under which the nation as such was placed, to introduce a 
cast of religion in which the letter was made subordinate to the 
spirit. But it has been remarked in passing that prophecy came 
in opportunely to meet the wants and desires which the discipline 
of the law had called forth; and indeed it is impossible adequately 
to estimate the effect of the religious influences which were brought 
to bear upon the Jew, if we leave out of view the important part 



118 CHURCH OF CHEIST. 

which prophecy fulfilled, both in fixing the impressions which the 
law by itself had produced and in communicating information 
upon points which the law had passed over in silence. It is when 
viewed in combination with the prophetic institute that the law is 
most clearly seen to have been a schoolmaster to prepare men for 
Christ. We pass on, then ; to make some remarks upon the matter 
and scope of the prophetic teaching of the Old Testament. 



Section III. 



THE PROPHETIC REVELATION. 



Our Lord, adopting the current language of the age, spoke of 
the elder revelation under the threefold division of the law, the 
psalms, and the prophets;* and the distinction is, for practical 
purposes, convenient and intelligible. It is not, however, strictly 
accurate. For the Pentateuch contains not only the civil and re- 
ligious polity of the Jewish people, but moral and predictive mat- 
ter also, as well as some lyrical compositions ; and the psalms, it is 
well known, are as prophetical as the writings of the prophets 
themselves. Indeed, nothing is more probable than that the two 
characters of prophet and poet were, among the Jews, as in other 
nations, commonly combined, and designated by the same name. 
The essential point of distinction lies in the form of composition : 
the psalms are lyrical poems intended to be set to music ; whereas 
the prophetic writings, though often highly poetical, and even 
containing a few specimens of^ sacred song, had, in general, no 
such character, f In other respects, the psalmists of Israel were 
teachers of religion, and instruments of the Spirit in foretelling 
what was to come, not less than they to whom we usually appro- 
priate the appellation of prophet ; and indeed, from their being in 
oonstant use in the public devotional exercises of the temple, the 

* Luke, xxiv. 44. 

t Another distinction, of a personal kind, has heen pointed out by Hengstenberg 
<Christologie, <fcc. Theil 1. Abt. 1. p. 201.) The psalmist might have the gift of prophetical 
inspiration, without being invested with the prophetical office; the donum, without the 
munus, propheticum. In the prophets, properly so called, both were united. 



THE PROPHETIC REVELATION. 119 

psalms must have exercised an influence in moulding the religious 
sentiments of the Jew, fully equal to, if not greater than, that of 
th.3 compositions of the prophets. 

The prophetic scriptures, strictly so called, comprise a series of 
revelations interposed between the Law and the Gospel, the con- 
fessed object of which was to prepare the way for the latter by 
unfolding, with increasing clearness as time advanced, its nature 
and essential principles. Prophecy, like the law, was introductory 
to the Gospel ; but in a different way. "What the law by its dis- 
cipline disposed men to feel and to desire, and what it shadowed 
forth in type and figure, prophecy, more or less, clearly announced 
as actually about to come : the law set men upon a wish for a bet- 
ter covenant, and a better atonement ; prophecy gave shape and 
substance to the wish, and turned it into a sure expectation : the 
law drove men from itself to Christ ; prophecy was full of Christ : 
the law and the Gospel as covenants are opposed to each other ; 
prophecy was an anticipation of the Gospel in its most distinctive 
doctrines : the law operated indirectly, prophecy directly, towards 
the introduction of the Gospel. The prophetic revelation, there- 
fore, is of great moment in determining the view which we are to 
entertain of the nature of the Christian dispensation. 

The subject-matter of the prophetic canon is easily perceived to 
be either didactic or predictive. For the scope of prophecy was 
very far from being confined to the mere foretelling of future 
events : a main part of the prophetic revelation consisted in com- 
municating religious instruction, both moral and doctrinal; in 
rebuking sin, especially in high places; in urging the duty of 
repentance ; and in ministering consolation to the true Israel of 
God in times of public calamity. The prophets were not only 
prophets in the narrower acceptation of the term, but religious 
teachers, and censors of public morals. The point of inquiry now 
before us is, whether the religious teaching of the prophets, and 
the notices which their predictions contain of the principal features 
of the Christian dispensation, are in the same direction as that 
which we have concluded the religious experience of the Jew to 
have unavoidably taken, — viz. from the external and ritual side 
of religion to the inward and spiritual — from the shell to the 
kernel ; or in a contrary direction, so as to reverse the process 
already commenced, and bring back the Jew to the oldness of the 
letter. Do the prophets treat the religion of the psalms as a true 
or as a false " development" of the original Judaism delivered by 
Moses ? 



120 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

The most cursory glance at the scope and tendency of the pro- 
phetic teaching of the Old Testament will make it evident, that it 
both confirms the impressions which we have supposed to have 
been produced by the operation of the law, and carries the mind 
of the devout inquirer still further in the same direction. In the 
words of an eminent writer on prophecy, the moral revelation of 
the prophets " is a step beyond the Law, and preparatory to the 
Gospel. It is a step beyond the law in respect of the greater dis- 
tinctness and fulness of some of its doctrines and precepts ; it is a 
more perfect exposition of the principles of personal holiness and 
virtue ; the sanctions of it have less of an exclusive reference to 
temporal promises, and incline more to evangelical; the ritual 
of the law begins to be discountenanced by it ; the superior value 
of the moral commandment to be enforced : and altogether it bears 
a more spiritual and a more instructive character than the original 
law given by Moses."* To the comprehensiveness of this state- 
ment nothing can be added ; but it may be useful to illustrate it 
by a few instances. 

Perhaps no example is more striking than that furnished by the 
book of Deuteronomy, in which Moses appears more as a prophet 
than as a lawgiver. Though commonly numbered among the 
books of the law, this remarkable composition is, in fact, the first 
of the long series of moral instructions vouchsafed by God to his 
ancient people: it is altogether prophetical in character. And 
though but a shopt time, comparatively, had elapsed since the pro- 
mulgation of the law, how great is the advance which in it religion 
is seen to have made. True it is that, even in Deuteronomy, 
religion is more national than personal : so much so, that the duty 
of private prayer, for example, is not once mentioned in the book. 
But the national religion which it inculcates is of a different com- 
plexion from that of the previous revelation. It is manifestly 
more moral, more inward. The spiritual service which God re- 
quires ; the divine attributes of holiness and mercy ; the goodness 
of God already exhibited towards the people; His favourable 
acceptance of national repentance ; and, in general, the full spiritual 
meaning of the moral law : — upon topics like these, the book of 
Deuteronomy enlarges with a copiousness which strikingly distin- 
guishes it from the first promulgation of the law. 

But to pass on to the later prophets : — there is no theme upon 
which they more frequently enlarge than the worthlessness of an 

* Davison on Prophecy, p. 44. (3d edit.) 



THE PKOPHETIC REVELATION. 121 

exact -compliance with the injunctions of the ceremonial law, 
when unaccompanied with moral purity. The opening chapter 
of the great evangelical prophet supplies a specimen of their doc- 
trine upon this point : — "To what purpose is the multitude of 
your sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt 
offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts ; and I delight not in 
the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye 
come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, 
to tread my courts ? Bring no more vain oblations ; incense is 
an abomination unto me ; the new moons and the sabbaths, the 
calling of assemblies, I cannot away with ; it is iniquity, even the 
solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my 
soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear 
them. — Wash you, make you clean ; put away the evil of your 
doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do well ; 
seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead 
for the widow."* Or, as the same lesson is inculcated with 
scarcely less energy of language by a contemporaneous pro- 
phet : — " Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow my- 
self before the high God ? Shall I come before him with burnt 
offerings, with calves of a year old ? Will the Lord be pleased 
with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? 
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my 
body for the sin of my soul ? He hath showed thee, man, what 
is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, 
and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ?" f It is 
in this tone that the prophets denounce the legal formalism, the 
servile adherence to the letter to the disparagement of the spirit, 
which is natural to fallen man, and which, in a later age, proved 
the occasion of the final ruin and dispersion of the Jewish 
people. 

Another striking characteristic of the prophetic teaching is, that 
it concerns itself with the interests of personal religion, as distin- 
guished from the corporate faith of the nation. In the earlier 
revelation of Moses, it is to the nation as such that the promises 
and threatenings of God are addressed ; the individual is merged 
in the body : in the prophets, what was a national promise be< 
the property of each true believer. In no instance is this more 
remarkably exemplified than in the doctrine of repentance. " If 
thou (the nation) shalt return to the Lord thy God, and shalt obey 

* Is. i. 11 — 17. +Mic. vi.6-8. 



122 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

his voice according to all that I command thee thia day — ; then 
the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion 
upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations 
whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee :"* — in these words 
the law had declared the efficacy of national repentance to aveit, 
or alleviate, the consequences of national transgression ; but here 
it stopped. The language of prophecy upon the same subject is ; 
" Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose 
name is Holy ; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also 
that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the 
humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."f The con- 
solatory promises of God to the penitent are in prophecy, as every 
reader will have observed, addressed, for the most part, no longer 
to the nation in its corporate capacity, but to the pious portion of 
it ; the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal, and 
yet were involved in the temporal calamities with which the whole 
community was visited. To these, the true Israel, — the meek, 
the broken-hearted, the mourners in Zion, — it was that the pro- 
phets were sent with a special message of consolation, assuring 
them that, whatever might be the fate of the earthly Zion, they 
were still the objects of God's providential care and tender com- 
passion, as being interested in a better covenant and in better 
promises than those given to their fathers at Sinai. The gradual 
loosening and separation of spiritual religion from its temporary 
envelopment, is, in these portions of the prophetic canon, so strik- 
ing, as at once to arrest the reader's attention ; while in the tem- 
poral condition of the Jewish commonwealth during the principal 
age of prophecy we see the particular occasion of this change in 
the spirit of the prophetic revelation. For the first covenant was 
then visibly drawing to a close. The temporal condition of the 
Jewish people, at the commencement of the chief age of prophecy, 
was no longer what it had been during the reigns of David and 
Solomon ; and before its close, the main part of the nation had 
been altogether dispossessed of its earthly inheritance, while the 
portion that remained was expiating its sins by a seventy years' 
captivity in Babylon. At a period when Jerusalem and the first 
temple were in ruins, and it might well seem to the pious Jew 
that God had altogether cast off' his people; when, in fact, the 
process by which the interior Judaism, or Christianity, of the Old 
Testament was to be extricated from its external shell, had com- 
menced, and was advancing to its consummation; how suitable 

* Deut xxx. 2, 3. t Is. lvii. 15. 



THE PROPHETIC REVELATION. 123 

and consolatory was the assurance conveyed to the afflicted people 
of God by the prophets, that this interior religion, — the worship 
of the heart, the faith of a humble and contrite spirit, — was alone 
of any real estimation with Him ; the assurance that the temple 
services and the ceremonial law, the observance of which was, 
during the period of invasion and exile, necessarily interrupted, 
were, in their own nature and essentially, inferior in value to 
inward, personal, piety ; and that, whether the worshipper were in 
Judea or in Babylon, if he only worshipped God in spirit and in 
truth, the substantial, because spiritual, blessings of the better 
covenant were his. " Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither 
remember iniquity for ever : behold, see, we beseech thee, we are 
all thy people. Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilder- 
ness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, 
where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire : and all our 
pleasant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain thyself for these 
things, Lord ? Wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very 
sore?"* To such prayers and inquiries, expressive of the per- 
plexity with which the pious Jew beheld the apparent failure of 
God's promises, an answer was vouchsafed; an answer of peace 
and consolation, but the scope of which carried the mind far be- 
yond the visible " beauty of holiness," conspicuous in the temple 
services, the loss of which was deplored. " Thus saith the Lord, 
The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool : where is 
the house that ye build unto me ? and where is the place of my 
rest ? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those 
things have been, saith the Lord : but to this man will I look, 
even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at 
my word." — " Eejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, 
all ye that love her; rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn 
for her ; that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her 
consolations ; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the 
abundance of her glory. For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will 
extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like 
a flowing stream."f But it is needless to multiply words in insist- 
ing upon what probably no one will be found to deny, — the pecu- 
liarly personal direction of later prophecy; or the marked line of 
distinction which it draws between him who was a Jew outwardly 
and him whose circumcision was "that of the heart in the spirit, 
and not in the letter," together with the large space which it de* 

• Is. lxiv. 9-12. t Is. lxvi. 1, 2. 10 - 12, 



124 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

votes to the instruction and consolation of the latter. The whole 
of the concluding portion of the prophecies of Isaiah, from the 
40th chapter inclusive, may be cited as an instance in point. 

Concurrently with this unfolding of the nature and requirements 
of that worship in which God really delights, the prophetic reve- 
lation communicated fuller and more distinct notices of the capital 
doctrines of Christianity. This simultaneous advance in the two 
great lines of practice and doctrine, is particularly deserving of 
observation. Exactly in proportion as the ritual religion of the 
ceremonial law is disparaged, and personal piety made the great 
condition of God's favour, does the covenant of Canaan, with its 
temporal sanctions, recede into the background, and the great 
truths connected with the better covenant open upon the view. To 
the true Israel, earthly blessings are no longer guaranteed : they 
are taught to seek their reward in the increased consolations which 
flow from a sense of God's favour and pardoning mercy, and from 
the prospects of a future state of blissful immortality. For it is 
in respect to the two great doctrines of the atonement, and of a 
future eternal state, that the superiority of the later to the earlier 
revelation is especially manifest. The indistinct promise of a de- 
liverer from the effects of sin, to spring from the seed of the wo- 
man, had become, when Isaiah began to prophecy, expanded into 
a variety of particulars, which tended to fix its meaning. The 
nation, the tribe, the family, from which the Messiah was to de- 
scend, had been specified ; and, in the prophetic psalms, His divine 
nature, His glory, the wide extent of His kingdom, His eternal 
priesthood, and His sufferings, had been made the subject of in- 
spired song ; nor do any subsequent declarations of prophecy ex- 
ceed, in fulness of statement, the general assurances which abound 
in the book of psalms, of God's willingness to pardon the penitent. 
Still, much was wanting to complete the general outline of the doc- 
trine. The important inquiry as to the manner in which the suf- 
ferings of Messiah were to conduce to the reversal of the effects of 
the fall, had been, even in the prophetic psalms, left unanswered : 
still less is any distinct statement upon the subject to be found in 
the Pentateuch. To the prophets it was reserved to make this 
essential addition to the faith of the pious Jew. Besides delivering 
a body of distinct and luminous information upon points to which 
some obscurity had hitherto attached, — such as the union of the 
divine and human natures in the person of Christ, His miracu- 
lous conception and birth, and the manner of His appearance upon 
earth — prophecy first distinctly declared the vicarious nature of 



THE PROPHETIC REVELATION. 125 

the atonement to be offered by Him. " He was wounded for our 
transgressions, lie was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement 
of our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed. — 
The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. — He was 
numbered with the transgressors ; and he bare the sin of many, 
and made intercession for the transgressors."* " Seventy weeks 
are determined upon Thy people and upon Thy holy city, to finish 
the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make recon- 
ciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness."f 
It is in these divine oracles of later prophecy that the connexion 
between the pardon of sin and the death of Messiah, the virtue of 
His atoning sacrifice and the real vicariousness of it, are, for the 
first time, clearly unfolded. The same may be said of the doc- 
trines of a future state, and of the resurrection of the body. The 
silence of the Pentateuch upon these points has been already no- 
ticed. And whatever tendency the prophecy of the 16th psalm, or 
the well-known passage in the book of Job, may have had to excite 
the curiosity, and raise the expectations of pious men, neither of 
them was distinct enough to afford a solid basis of hope : the 
former, indeed, containing as it did a feature so peculiar as the ex- 
emption of the body from corruption, could have contributed but 
little to the faith and consolation of those who knew it to be the 
common lot of man to return to the dust from which he originally 
sprang. An elaborate attempt has been made to establish, from 
various other expressions in the book of Psalms, the conclusion 
that the writers entertained a clear idea, and enjoyed a sure expec- 
tation, of future eternal happiness \\ but, not to speak of the am- 
biguity attaching to these passages, and the peculiar idiom of the 
Hebrew language, in which temporal prosperity is expressed in 
terms drawn from the spiritual world, there is one fact which 
seems strongly to militate against this hypothesis, — viz. the feel- 
ings of despondency and doubt which pervade so many of these 
sacred compositions when the subject of dissolution is touched 
upon, and the gloomy views which the writers entertain of the re- 
gions beyond the grave. Can we conceive it possible that such 
sentiments upon the subject as are found in the 6th, the 39th, and 
the 88th psalms, or in Hezekiah's song of thanksgiving for his re- 
covery from sickness, could have been uttered by the writers, had 
they possessed any distinct notion of the resurrection to life eter- 

* la. liii. 5, 6. 12. t Dan. ix. 24. 

X Graves on the Pentateuch, part iii. sect. 4. (7th edit.) 



126 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

n^l ?* Prophecy, however, though it still left the Jewish believer 
without any express assurance upon the point in question, made 
large additions to the materials of pious hope. However imper- 
fectly such prophecies as that of Hosea, xiii. 14 ; of Isaiah, xxv. 8 ; 
and the still more significant one of Daniel, xii. 2 ; o ; the prophetic 
vision of Ezekiel, xxxvii. may have been understood, it is impos- 
sible not to believe that they opened to the pious Hebrew, at the 
time when he most needed such an enlargement of view, consola- 
tory prospects of a future state, far clearer than were vouchsafed 
to his forefathers. Even so, indeed, the doctrine remained the 
cherished hope of the serious few, and the popular opinion of the 
nation ; it could not claim assent by virtue of an authoritative re- 
velation. To Christ himself it was reserved to set the question at 
rest, and to bring "life and immortality to light," by announcing, 
with the authority of a teacher sent from God, that the hour was 
"coming, in the which they that are in the grave shall hear his 
voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good to the resur- 
rection of life ; and they that have done evil to the resurrection 
of damnation."f In declaring this great doctrine, he "pronounced," 
to adopt the striking language of Paley, " a message of inestima- 
ble importance, and well worthy of that splendid apparatus of pro- 
phecy and miracles with which his mission was introduced and at- 
tested; a message in which the wisest of men would rejoice to 
find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries :"$ who, 
however, seems to overstep the limits of sober statement, when he 
adds that, "it is idle to say that a future state had been discovered 
already: it had been discovered as the Copernican system was, — 
it was one guess among many." The triumphant nunc dimittis of 
Simeon proves that they who in that age waited for the consolation 
of Israel were upheld, in the prospect of death, by something 
stronger than a mere "guess;" and proves, also, how great had 
been the progress of religious faith, upon this particular point, 
since the days of David and Hezekiah. 

But in what terms do the prophets speak of that better cove- 
nant, glimpses of which they unfold to the faithful few, for their 
support and consolation amidst the waning of the temporal pros- 

* " In death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks ?" 
(Ps. vi. 5.) " Shall thy wonders bo known in the dark ? and thy righteousness in the land 
of forgetfulness ?" (Ps. lxxxviii. 12.) "The grave cannot praise thee; death cannot cele- 
brate thee : they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth." (Is. xxxviii. 18.) 

t John, v. 28, 29. 

X Moral and Political Philosophy, b. r. c. 9. 



THE PKOPHETIC REVELATION. 127 

perity of Israel ? What are the leading features of it as pourtrayed 
by them ? In passing from the religious teaching of prophecy, to 
make some observations upon its properly predictive matter on 
the subject of Christianity, it is proper to premise that only that 
part of it which throws light upon the nature of the new dispensa- 
tion will come under consideration. For to occupy the whole of 
this wide field, comprising, as it does, the prophetic predictions 
respecting the Person, as well as the kingdom of the Messiah, 
would require a volume instead of a section ; and, moreover, 
would be to wander from the immediate point in hand. Even as 
regards the limited portion of Christian prophecy proposed to be 
noticed, nothing but a few brief remarks upon it will be offered. 

The first thing, probably, which strikes the reader in the pre- 
dictions concerning Christianity is, the promised extension of the 
blessings of true religion to the Gentiles. The comprehensiveness 
of the new dispensation, as contrasted with the restricted and local 
character of the existing one, is spoken of as one of its main char- 
acteristics. Moreover, it is always described as a continuation, or 
development in whatever sense, of the economy in being. Zion, 
the existing Zion, is to be enlarged, so as to admit all nations of 
the earth. The concluding portion of the prophecies of Isaiah is 
especially abundant in predictions of this character. For exam- 
ple: — "Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath 
forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she 
should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, they 
may forget, yet will not I forget thee. — Lift up thine eyes round 
about, and behold : all these gather themselves together, and come 
to thee. — The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost 
the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for 
me : give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in 
thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my 
children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro ? 
And who hath brought up these ? Behold, I was left alone ; these, 
where had they been? Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will 
lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the 
people," &c. " Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear ; break 
forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with 
child : for more are the children of the desolate than the children 
of the married wife, saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy 
tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations : 
spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes ; for thou 
shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left ; and thy seed 






128 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be 
inhabited." * 

It might have been expected that predictions like these, which 
describe the kingdom of Christ as issuing, by way of natural pro- 
pagation, from a Jewish stock, or standing to the latter in the 
relation of child to parent, would be laid hold of by Komish con- 
troversialists, as confirmatory of their teaching on the subject of 
the Church. This, in fact, is the use that has been made of them.f 
More especially, that the Church should be, in the Komish sense 
of the word, visible, has been inferred from the famous prophecy 
of Isaiah and Micah : " And it shall come to pass that in the last 
days the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the 
top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; and all 
nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, 
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the 
house of the Cod of Jacob ; and he will teach us of his ways, and 
we will walk in His paths ; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, 
and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem :" X a prophecy which 
is of the same general import with those above cited. A closer 
examination, however, of the scope of these predictions destroys 
the argument founded upon them. For what is the "Zion" to 
which these gracious promises are addressed ? It is described, in 
the language of personification usual with the prophets, as "a 
woman forsaken, and grieved in spirit;" " barren," and " desolate;" 
" afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted ;" as sitting in 
the dust, and overwhelmed with a sense of the terribleness of 
God's visitations.§ To administer consolation to Zion, thus de- 
pressed ; to assure her, that, however dark her present dispensa- 
tion might be, a brighter period awaited her ; this is the direct and 
obvious intention of far the greater part of the prophecies in 
question. Whence we draw the conclusion that the object of them 

*Is. xlix. 14-20. j liv. 1-3. 

t Bellarm. de Eccles. milit. 1. iii. c. 12. 

X Is. ii. 2 — 5. Mic. iv. 1-3. Hengstenberg (Christologie, Theil. i. Abt. ii. p. 22.) well 
observes, that to treat this prophecy as directly predictive of the Christian Church at all is a 
mere arbitrary hypothesis. By " the mountain of the Lord's house" is meant Mount Moriah 
on which the temple was built, or Mount Zion (comprehending Mount Moriah) ; and the 
prophecy, like so many others of Isaiah, simply alludes to the accession of spiritual glory it 
should receive by becoming the birth-place of the Gospel, and the source whence the know- 
ledge of Christ should diffuse itself throughout the world. So also Calvin (in loc.) : " Mon- 
ies alii poterant altitudine superare ; sed quia gloria Dei prseeminet, montom etiam in quo 
patent, eminere necesse est. Montem ergo Sion per se non prsedicat, sed cum suo ornatu, 
quo etiam universus orbis illustrandus erat." 

g Is. liv. 1-6. and 11.; Hi. 2. 



THE PROPHETIC REVELATION. 129 

was, not the nation in its corporate capacity, — not the Jew by 
fleshly descent merely, — but the faithful servants of God, — the 
spiritual descendants of Abraham ; whose faith, tried as it was to 
the utmost by the scenes of intestine corruption and disorder, and 
the temporal desolations of the holy city, which it was their lot to 
witness, needed every support to prevent its failing. But if this 
be so, it is obvious, not only that the Komish argument falls to the 
ground, but that positive confirmation is given to the opposite 
view; for if it was the spiritual Zion, or "holy seed," the "sub- 
stance" * of the visible Israel, of which the church of Christ, em- 
bracing all nations, was to be the legitimate offshoot, it seems to 
follow by necessary inference, that that which distinguished the 
true from the visible Israel, — viz. the inward work of the spirit 
in the heart — was also to constitute the essential characteristic of 
its spiritual daughter. 

Of a more positive and explicit character are the following pro- 
phetic notices of the approaching dispensation of Christ. It was 
to be an era of light and truth, as contrasted with the preceding 
one of shadow and type ; the glory of the Lord was to be revealed ; 
and, instead of the dim twilight of typical ordinances, " the Sun 
of Righteousness" Himself was to "arise with healing in his 
wings," and give light to the world.f It was to be marked by a 
new, if not revelation, yet manifestation, of the character of God. 
Hitherto He had made Himself known to His people, chiefly, 
though not exclusively, as the Almighty Governor of the world, 
a God of infinite power and holiness, inaccessible directly to sinful 
man ; but under the Gospel He would especially manifest Himself 
in His attributes of love and grace. The Messiah was to be "as 
an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest ; as 
rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a 
weary land:" He was to "feed His flock like a shepherd," to 
"gather the lambs in His arm, and carry them in His bosom," and 
to "gently lead those that are with young:" the Lord was to- 
anoint Him, " to preach good tidings unto the meek ; to bind up> 
the broken hearted ; to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 
opening of the prison to them that are bound;" "to comfort all 
that mourn.":): (One of the most characteristic traits of Komanism 
is the virtual abeyance to which it consigns the offices of the Re- 
deemer, as portrayed in prophecy ; investing Him instead with the 
character of an avenging judge. Such will always be the result 

* Is. vi. 13. t Is. xl. 5, 9. lx. 1-3. Mai. iv. 2. 

X Is. xxxii. 2. j xl. 2. j lxi. 1. 






130 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

where the mediatorship of the incarnate Son is superseded "by a 
staff of human mediators.) It was to be accompanied with an ex- 
traordinary outpouring of the Spirit, whose gifts, instead of being 
confined, as heretofore, to a few selected individuals, were to be 
bestowed in rich abundance, and promiscuously.* A real atone- 
ment for sin, and an inward cleansing of the heart, of which the 
legal sacrifices and lustrations were but the shadows, were pro- 
mised.! Grod would dwell among His people, not, as heretofore, 
in symbol, but really, — i. e. spiritually. Each of these heads might 
be largely illustrated from the volume of prophecy ; but the cita- 
tions would occupy a space incompatible with our prescribed 
limits ; nor, in truth, are detailed proofs necessary of what every 
attentive reader of the prophetic revelation will recognise as its 
prominent characteristics. 

One capital prophecy, however, there is, which, from its combin- 
ing in one view almost all the characteristics of the new dispensa- 
tion which lie scattered throughout the prophetic volume, deserves 
particular attention; and for this reason shall be here cited at 
length : — the prophecy in the thirty -first chapter of Jeremiah. 
" Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new 
covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah : 
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in 
the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the 
land of Egypt j which my covenant they brake, although I was an 
husband unto them, saith the Lord : but this shall be the covenant 
that I will make with the house of Israel ; After those days, saith 
the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in 
their hearts ; and will be their Grod, and they shall be my people. 
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every 
man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for they shall all know 
me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the 
Lord : for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their 
sin no more.":): The reference of this prophecy to Christian times 
is established by inspired testimony (Heb. viii. 8.) And what are 
the distinctive outlines which it presents of the future dispensation ? 
A new covenant is promised to take the place of the old one which 
God made with the Jewish people when he led them forth from 
Egypt. It is to differ from its predecessor in several essential par- 
ticulars. The Mosaic covenant was national and literal ; this is to 
be personal and spiritual. The law, which under the former cove- 

* Joel, ii. 28. Is. xxxii. 15. j xliv. 3. t Esek, xi. 19. ; xxxvi. 25 - 21. 

X Jer. xxxi. 31-34. 



THE PROPHETIC REVELATION. 131 

riant was external to those placed under it — a dead letter, " written 
and engraven on stones," — is, under the new covenant, to be a 
living principle, written within, prompting to the unconstrained, 
the universal, the natural obedience of a new heart. It is true 
that under the law also God had in every age those who worship- 
ped him in spirit and in truth ; but this internal service of the 
heart was not the specific difference of the old covenant : of the 
new it is to be so. They in whose "inward parts" the law is thus 
to be written shall then constitute the Israel of God : the Old Tes- 
tament appellation shall be retained, with a changed meaning. The 
same Spirit who inscribes the law upon the heart of the chosen 
people shall illuminate their minds, and in the Scriptures, spirit- 
ually understood, unfold to them the knowledge of God and of 
Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. There shall be no distinction as 
regards the communication of religious truth, between the few and 
the many : "all shall know me from the least of them unto the 
greatest of them :" " They shall be all taught of God." And the 
whole of this spiritual economy shall be founded upon a perfect 
and sufficient atonement for sin, the apprehension of which, by 
faith, shall give peace to the conscience, and for the spirit of bond- 
age, under which the ancient believer, from his comparative lack 
of knowledge, laboured, substitute the Spirit of adoption, whereby 
we cry, Abba ! Father ! What further observations are needed ? 
We have Christianity before us in all its main features : not indeed 
the Christianity of Romanism or the Church system, but the Chris- 
tianity of the Christian Scriptures. In reading such a prophecy 
as the one before us, we cannot refuse assent to the remark of 
Nitzsch,*— ~ that the prophets understood the principles of the Gos- 
pel much better than some of those whose especial boast it is that 
they are the successors of the Apostles ! 

To sum up in few words : — The direction which the prophetic 
teaching assumes is, as contrasted with that of the law, manifestly 
less external and more spiritual ; less ritual and more moral ; less 
corporate and more personal. These are characteristics which lie 
on the very surface of the prophetic volume. The religion which 
it inculcates is no longer the artificial system, consisting " only in 
meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances," 
upon which the earlier revelation so largely dwells, assigning to 
the outward religious life a relative importance which throws the 
inward into the background : it is an evident approximation to 

* Protestant. Beantwort. p. 193. 



132 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



the loyixii XaxQEia^ the rational, because moral, service of Christianity, 
The moral precepts which do indeed occur in the books of Moses, 
but which are there delivered, so to speak, in a crude state, and 
without any hint of their essential superiority to the legal ceremo- 
nies, are taken up by the prophets, and made the chief topics of 
discussion: they are enlarged upon, developed, and worked out 
into the particulars of practice. Above all, the place which the 
weightier matters of the law occupy in God's estimation is, in pro- 
phecy, authoritatively fixed. The law indeed had inculcated the 
sum and substance of religion when it said " Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself;" 
but the question still remains, what place in the scale of religious 
duty did it assign to these moral precepts ? Here it is that the ad- 
vance of the latter, as compared with the early revelation, is chiefly 
perceptible. The substantial duties of love to God and to man, 
which in the Pentateuch are placed side by side with the distinc- 
tion between clean and unclean beasts, or with the regulation pro- 
hibiting mixed seed and garments of mingled linen and woollen,* 
assume in prophecy their proper place : their relative importance is 
declared. In the law, all duties of whatever kind stand upon the 
same level ; in prophecy, they are placed one above another accord- 
ing to their intrinsic importance : the law enjoins promiscuously ; 
prophecy distinguishes and classifies. This may seem to us but a 
small step in advance ; but it was not so at the time when it was 
made. Moreover, the more clearly the prophetic teaching unfolded 
the nature and requirements of spiritual religion, the larger dis- 
closures did it make of the blessings connected with the Christian 
covenant. The more Christian the revelation becomes in doctrine, 
the more inward a complexion do its precepts assume. In its pre- 
dictive notices of the kingdom of Christ, prophecy advanced still 
further in the same track. For it distinctly announced the im- 
pending abrogation of the existing system, and the substitution for 
it of a spiritual dispensation, strongly contrasted with, and yet 
shadowed forth, by its predecessor. There was nothing, therefore, 
in the volume of prophecy to counteract the natural effect of the 
discipline of the law upon serious minds, but everything to pro- 
mote it. Prophecy took the sincere disciple of the law by the 
hand, strengthened his impressions, confirmed his surmises, carried 
him forward in the path of spiritual religion, and at the same time 
opened to his view the distinctive verities of Christianity. And 

* See, for example, Levit. xix. 18, 19. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST'S AND CHRIST'S MINISTRIES. 133 

all this it did, not as being the comments of uninspired men, but 
with the authority of an independent revelation ; God himself thus 
virtually setting aside the elementary system under which the 
nation in its infancy had been placed. 






Section IV. 

THE MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST AND THAT OF CHRIST. 

The lapse of a few centuries from the last of the prophets brings 
us to the next great epoch in the progressive course of revela- 
tion, — that of the appearance of Christ's immediate forerunner, 
and of the incarnate Son Himself, upon the stage of human affairs. 
For the purposes of the inquiry now before us, the ministry of 
John the Baptist and that of our Lord may be considered as 
together constituting one, and that the concluding, stage of the 
dispensations which were to serve as an introduction to the Gospel. 
Both were prophets; both were teachers sent from God; both 
were immediate heralds of the Gospel, though one was the subject 
itself of that Gospel, the other merely " the friend of the bride- 
groom." And what we have now to consider, is, the teaching of 
the Baptist and of Christ, as the completion of the prophetic reve- 
lation of the old dispensation. In what points Christ's teaching 
differs from, and goes beyond, all that had preceded it, will be 
pointed out in the course of the inquiry : meanwhile, to obviate 
misconstructions of what has been just said, it may be proper to 
remind the reader that the mission of our Lord, — if by that term 
we mean to express the whole of what He did upon earth, — em- 
braced several objects, in themselves distinct. 

Thus, for example, the chief purpose of His coming into the 
world was to accomplish that work of redemption which had been 
prefigured by the law, and foretold by the prophets. This was the 
special office in the economy of grace, which. from the beginning 
had been assigned to the second person of the Trinity. Chris- 
tianity was to be founded upon a series of facts ; those facts being 
the miraculous conception of Christ, and the union in Him of the 












134 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



divine and the human natures ; his spotless obedience, by which 
the requirements of the Law were satisfied ; His death upon the 
cross for the sins of the world ; His resurrection ; His ascension 
into heaven ; and the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pente- 
cost. Of these facts, the spiritual import is declared, partly by 
Christ himself, and more fully by His apostles ; and these inspired 
explanations constitute the doctrines of the Gospel. Eedemption, 
in its objective aspect, was the specific work which the Son came 
into the world to accomplish. 

Another subordinate one was, the making provision for the 
future establishment of His church as a visible society ; distinct, 
at first, from the other sects which at that time abounded in Judaea, 
and finally from the Jewish theocracy itself. The appointment of 
the fundamental conditions necessary to a visible religious com- 
munity proceeded, in the case of the church, from Christ himself, 
who, so far, may be called the founder of the visible Church. For 
he instituted, first, the visible rite (baptism) which marks the en- 
trance of an individual into fellowship with him, and with those 
who believe upon him : secondly, the visible ordinance by which 
■ the sacred assemblies of Christians were to be distinguished from the 
synagogue, — viz. the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the central 
feature of Christian worship : and, thirdly, a body of persons (the 
apostles) authorised by Him to preside over and conduct the affairs 
of the society ; who, for this purpose, were endowed with extraor- 
dinary gifts and plenary authority. All these, however, were, in 
the Saviour's lifetime, but prospective provisions ; for His church 
did not come formally into existence until the day of Pentecost. 

A third office which it was predicted He should sustain is that 
of Teacher and Prophet ; an office to which that of the Jewish 
lawgiver was, on account of the importance of the revelations 
delivered through him, not unworthy of being compared : " The 
Lord thy God shall raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst 
of thee, like unto me ; unto him shall ye hearken." (Deut. xviii. 
15.) Christ both confirmed the religious teaching of the prophets, 
and made large additions to the existing stock of revealed truth, 
either by authoritatively establishing doctrines which before had 
been but darkly hinted at, or by announcing truths hitherto un- 
known. Indeed, all the distinctive verities of the Christian reve- 
lation were, one after another, declared by Christ Himself, to be 
afterwards more fully expounded by the Apostles. 

It is only in this last point of view that the ministry of our 
Lord is now to be considered : and, as that of the great prophet 



JOHN THE BAPTIST'S AND CHRIST'S MINISTRIES. 135 

promised to the Jews, it falls under the same category with that 
of John the Baptist, as properly belonging to the old dispensation. 
For, in strictness of language, the earthly life of Christ did not 
form part of the new economy of grace. He came " a minister of 
the circumcision," and "made under the law;" and He continued 
so, until, by His dying and rising again, He had redeemed His 
people from the curse of the Law. Then, and not until then, He 
became, in the proper sense of the word, the head of His Church ; 
for it is not of Christ in His earthly, but in His glorified state, 
that the apostle affirms that " we" (Christians) " are members of 
His body, of His flesh, and of His bones."* Under the Christian 
dispensation, we no longer know " Christ after the flesh ;"f and 
they who, as the Apostles, enjoyed this privilege, exchanged it, 
when once the Spirit — the true connecting link between the Head 
and the body — had been vouchsafed, for a new and heavenly 
apprehension of Him. Hence possibly may be explained Christ's 
words to Mary: " Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my 
Father.":): The risen Saviour was no longer to be the subject of 
carnal intercourse, while that mystical incorporation in Him, 
which is the effect of the descent of the Spirit, had not yet taken 
place ; so that in the interval between His resurrection and ascen- 
sion into heaven, believers remained in the imperfect condition 
proper to the legal dispensation, needing, in order to be brought 
into mystical union with their glorified Head, the special efflux of 
the Spirit by which the Christian Church was formally constituted. 
It is not with His earthly, but with His heavenly, life that Christ 
has drawn up His Church into union : it is " in heavenly places" 
that God, having " quickened us together with Christ," has "made 
us sit together" with Him.§ In perfect harmony with His be- 
longing, as concerning the flesh, to the elder dispensation, it was 
that our Lord was circumcised, and presented in the temple " after 
the custom of the Law ;" that he, though greater than John, re- 
ceived John's baptism, deeming it right " to fulfil all righteous- 
ness," i. e. to comply with every divine ordinance ; and that his 
personal ministry was confined to Judgea, and, with few exceptions, 
to Jews, He Himself declaring that He was " not sent but unto 
the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 

Hence it is that, as every attentive reader of the Gospels will 
have observed, the doctrinal teaching of Christ bears so much of 

* Ephes. v. 30. t 2 Cor. v. 16. 

t John, xx. 17. 2 Ephes. ii. 5, 6- 




136 CHURCH OF CHRIST. „ 

an anticipatory character ; that is, refers to a state of things which 
did not then exist, but which was just about to come into being. 
To Christ, the kingdom of heaven, — i. e. the Gospel dispensation 
— was as much a future thing as it was to John the Baptist, ex- 
cept in so far as it was present in Christ Himself, in whom the 
will of God and the will of man existed, upon earth, in perfect 
unison. His statements on the cardinal doctrines and mysteries 
of the Gospel were at the time for the most part unintelligible, not 
only to the carnally-minded Jew, but even to His own followers : 
His expressions wore to them an air of undefined mystery, which 
was not dissipated until Christ was fully formed in them by the 
descent of the Spirit. That they appear plain to us is owing to 
our possessing in the last, or apostolic, revelation, which throws a 
flood of light upon the law, the prophets, and the teaching of our 
Lord Himself, the key to their meaning. Perhaps it is needless to 
insist further upon the fact (which, however, has not always beeu 
kept in mind), that the Christian dispensation formally com- 
menced, not with the incarnation of Christ, but with the descent of 
the Spirit ; and that, as the provisions which our Lord made for 
the visible separation of His Church from Judaism — such as the 
formation of the apostolic college and the Sacraments — remained, 
until He was perfected, forms without substance, — the visible 
receptacle without the informing spirit, — so His teaching partook 
of the same anticipatory, and so far imperfect, character. Had 
this been recollected, the disputes which have arisen upon the 
question, how far was the Gospel preached by Christ Himself? 
might have been avoided. The Gospel was preached by our Lord 
as it had been preached by the prophets, only much more ex- 
plicitly; but the teaching both of Christ and of the prophets 
needed, for their illustration, the fuller disclosure of the counsels 
of God which was given through the apostles. To affirm this is 
not to disparage the teaching of our Lord ; unless it be a dis- 
paragement to it to maintain that the revelation of God, having 
been throughout progressive, the concluding portion of it may be 
expected to throw light upon all that preceded it. 

But to return; — the state of religion among the Jews, when 
Christ and his forerunner appeared, may be gathered with suffi- 
cient accuracy from the notices on the subject furnished by the 
Gospel history. The repeated chastisements which its ancient 
propensity to idolatry had drawn down upon the nation had at 
length produced the desired effect ; and after the Babylonish cap- 
tivity, the Jews appear to have been thoroughly weaned from the 



JOHN" THE BAPTISTS AND CHRIST'S MINISTRIES. 137 

favourite sin of their forefathers. Simultaneously however with, 
this remarkable change for the better in the national sentiment, 
certain less favourable characteristics began, for the first time, to 
exhibit themselves, or, at least, assumed a prominence which had 
not hitherto belonged to them. The Jews had been always prone 
to overvalue the external privileges which, as the chosen people of 
God, they enjoyed; but after the Babylonish captivity, this feeling 
became more intense, and gave rise to a spiritual pride of the most 
virulent character. The deeper the political degradation of the 
nation, the closer it clung to its religious prerogatives ; and con- 
soled itself, under the yoke of its temporal conquerors, with the 
hope, that the time was approaching when they who now tram- 
pled Zion under foot would approach her as suppliants, and 
acknowledge the universal sway of Messiah. It was at this 
period of their history that the peculiar spirit of vindictive con- 
tempt and rancour towards other nations, which attracted the no- 
tice, and awakened the curiosity, of heathen historians, displayed 
itself among the Jewish people. In the sect of the Pharisees, the 
peculiar characteristics of which are so strikingly portrayed in the 
New Testament Scriptures, this phase of Jewish feeling found, in 
our Lord's time, its chief exponent. A rigid formalism in religion, 
which however was compatible with the utmost laxity in morals, 
distinguished this sect. The course of religious progress, as it is 
discernible in the prophetic revelation, was by the Pharisees com- 
pletely reversed : religion once more became a matter of law, or 
external prescript; the letter stifled the spirit; positive enact- 
ments superseded moral duties ; and a ceremonial worship took 
the place of the inward communion of the heart with God. The 
legalism of the Pharisee, however, was of a more onerous char- 
acter than the original institute of Moses ; for to the appointments 
of the latter he added a multitude of traditionary prescriptions, 
placing them on a level with the divine commands. By his tra- 
ditionary interpretations of Scripture, or additions to the written 
Word, he evaded compliance with the plainest precepts of the 
moral code. The relative importance of duties he was unable, 
because he was unwilling, to discern ; and, unlike the prophets, 
postponed "the weightier matters of the law — judgment, justice, 
and mercy" — to its ritual appointments. With a conscience thus 
destitute of moral sensitiveness, it was but natural that he should 
be indifferent to the anticipatory notices of the Gospel which the 
volume of prophecy furnished ; or, if he did bestow attention upon 
them, should wrest their interpretation to suit his carnal tastes. 






138 CHUECH OF CHRIST. 

Hence the secular views which the Pharisees entertained respect- 
ing the Messiah, and the nature of His kingdom. In combination 
with these peculiarities, this sect exhibited an intense zeal for the 
propagation of their religion ; compassing sea and earth to make 
proselytes, but little solicitous to promote the moral improvement 
of those whom they induced to submit to the yoke of the law. 

And yet, revolting as Pharisaism was in its practical aspect, the 
Pharisees, as contrasted with the other Jewish sects, were the 
representatives of orthodox Judaism. They sat in Moses's seat. 
Whatever unwritten traditions they might append to the written 
Word, that Word itself they received in all its integrity. Their 
sectarian spirit had, at least, one good effect : repelling every 
admixture of foreign elements, it preserved them from the taint 
of heathen philosophy and oriental mysticism, which, whenever 
they were combined with the Jewish revelation, corrupted it, as 
they afterwards did Christianity. The effect of the infelicitous 
combination alluded to was especially visible in the Jews of the 
Alexandrian school, of which the sect of the Sadducees was, in 
all probability, an offshoot. Presenting in many points a favoura- 
ble contrast with the exclusiveness and formalism of the Pharisees, 
and exhibiting a laudable desire to elicit the full spiritual meaning 
of Scripture ; the tendency, nevertheless, of this school was to 
merge the historical objects of the national faith in cold abstrac- 
tions. The Alexandrine Jew lost his hold of that which consti- 
tuted the central idea of the ancient theocracy, the expectation of 
a personal Messiah ; and interpreted the glowing visions of pro- 
phecy upon this subject as denoting the dissemination of religious 
light and knowledge from Jerusalem, as from a centre, throughout 
the world. "It is the destiny of the Jews," says Philo, "to be 
the prophets and priests of mankind."* So vague, so rationalistic, 
a view of the Old Testament Scriptures could supply no historical 
basis for Christianity ; and the sects in which it prevailed, such as 
that of the Essenes, proved less susceptible of the Gospel than 
the Pharisees themselves. In Sadduceeism, the latitudinarian 
tendencies of Alexandrine Judaism had worked themselves out 
into positive unbelief, leading to a rejection of the doctrines of 
the separate existence of the soul, and of a resurrection of the 
body ; both of them, in our Lord's time, articles of the popular 
faith. For this reason it is,, that so large a portion of Christ's dis- 
courses, as recorded in the Gospels, is addressed to the Pharisees. 

* Quoted by Neander, Church History, vol. i. part 1. p. 63. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST'S AND CHRIST'S MINISTRIES. 139 

However great the change that must take place in the moral sen- 
timents of the Pharisee before he could enter the kingdom of 
heaven, he had nothing dogmatically false to unlearn; and the 
orthodox faith, to which he clung, offered a point of connexion 
with Christianity, which was wanting in the irreligious indiffer- 
ence to the peculiar hopes and privileges of Israel which charac- 
terised the other sects. Hence, too, it was, that the sect of the 
Pharisees was both numerous and influential, while the Sadducees 
had comparatively few adherents, and were not in popular favour ; 
the abstractions of a speculative religion have never been found 
capable of gaining a strong hold upon the popular mind. There 
is every reason to believe that in Pharisaism, the general national 
feeling of the Jews, in the time of Christ, expressed itself in a 
concentrated form. 

The foregoing remarks upon the prevailing cast of religious sen- 
timent among the Jews, when our Lord and His forerunner entered 
on their public ministry, will enable us the better to understand 
the special scope of that ministry, which may be briefly described 
as an endeavour to awaken the dormant moral sense, and vivify 
the conscience, by a full exposition of the spiritual import of the 
moral law ; in which point of view it was partly a repetition, and 
partly an enlargement, of the prophetic revelation, in the points 
which are characteristic of the latter. 

The immediate forerunner of Christ came, as it had been pre- 
dicted he should, in " the spirit and power of Elias,"* exhibiting 
in his character, and even in his outward appearance, the earnest- 
ness and austerity which distinguished that great prophet. His 
ministry has been sometimes described as forming the connecting 
link between the old and the new dispensations ; but, in truth, it 
belonged exclusively to the old. In John the Baptist the law is 
seen consummating its proper office of producing conviction of 
sin ; beyond this his ministry did not advance ; nor could it have 
done so without trenching upon the peculiar province of the Gos- 
pel. The necessity of repentance, as a preparation for the approach- 
ing kingdom of heaven, was all that he was empowered to preach. 
To unfold the spirituality and strictness of the divine law, to tear 
the mask from hypocrisy, to break up the fallow ground of the 
conscience, — this was the object of his mission ; not to offer either 
pardon for past sin or strength from above for future obedience.f 

* Mai. iv. 5, 6. 

t "He came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for 






140 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









"Among those that" were "born of women," indeed, — those, that 
is, who lived under the law when the regenerating spirit ; in its 
fulness, was not vouchsafed, — " there" had " not arisen a greater 
than John the Baptist :"* it was his peculiar privilege to see with 
the eye of sense what other prophets and holy men had only 
beheld in spirit — God manifest in the flesh, to bear testimony to 
the actual presence of " the Lamb of God which taketh away the 
sins of the world :" it was his province, too, to close the propheti- 
cal revelation of the Old Testament, with the announcement which 
brings us to the very threshold of the new covenant, — "that he 
that belie veth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he that belie v- 
eth not the Son shall not see life ;"f and which, as regards distinct- 
ness of doctrinal statement, has no parallel in antecedent prophecy. 
Nevertheless, " He that is least in the kingdom of God" — or the 
gospel dispensation — "is greater than. he:" for the spiritual bless- 
ings of an accomplished atonement, appropriated by faith, and the 
actual presence of the promised Comforter, both of them special 
privileges of the new covenant, were not the Baptist's either to 
possess or to announce. 

And as his preaching, so his baptism, was but preparatory and 
imperfect. It was not a baptism for the remission of sins ; nor did 
it either symbolise or confer the regenerating spirit : it was not a 
"laver of regeneration," but a baptism "with water unto repent- 
ance," — the outward lustration (an ordinary one among the Jews) 
symbolizing the effect of the law upon the conscience, viz. a heart- 
felt conviction of sin. For the ^ravoia, or repentance, which John 
preached, was, in its nature, negative rather than positive : it con- 
sisted in the preparation of the heart for a cordial reception of the 
Gospel, whenever it should be promulgated ; in the putting off 
"the old man with his deeds;" in the removal of spiritual impedi- 
ments to the influences of Christianity. But it did not involve 
that positive element of internal renewal which results from union 
with Christ: it represented regeneration merely in its negative 
aspect : it was the sign and seal of fitness for the spiritual blessings 
of redemption, not of those blessings themselves. Hence its essen- 
tial inferiority to the Christian sacrament. Christian baptism sym- 
bolises the actual transfer from a state of nature into a state of 

the remission of sins" (Luke, iii. 3.) : not, as Olshausen remarks, that he preached remission 
of sins, but a repentance which was to prepare for, to lead the way to, that blessing : «'$ 
a<(>e<riv dpapnuv. " Nam quod praedicabat baptismum pcsnitentiae in remissionem delictorum 
in futuram remissionem enuntiatum est." Tertull. de Bap. s. 10. 

* Matt. xi. 11. t John, iii. 36. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST'S AND CHKIST'S MINISTEIES. 141 

grace, and seals to the believer the blessings of the new covenant. 
In it we are not only bnried with Christ to sin; but we rise with 
him to a new and heavenly life : we not only put off the old man, 
bnt put on the new. Christian baptism, therefore, represents 
regeneration in its fulness, — in its positive as well as its negative 
aspect, the spirit as well as the water ; and so differs from, and is 
superior to, the symbol of the Baptist's ministry. 

But of what nature was " the kingdom of heaven" which John 
announced as at hand, and to prepare men for which was his mis- 
sion ? The expression, as is well known, is used in the New Tes- 
tament in various senses, which it is not necessary here to enu- 
merate. Whether we take it to signify the unseen dominion of 
the Spirit in the hearts of believers — as when our Lord says " The 
kingdom of God is within you" (Luke, xvii. 20, 21.)* ; — or the 
visible church in its present mixed condition, — as in the parables 
of the tares and the net ; or the future manifestation of the church 
at the day of Christ (Luke, xxi. 31.) ; or, in general, the Christian 
dispensation ; is not material to the question before us. The essen- 
tial point to be noticed is, that into this " kingdom of God" — or 
new dispensation about to be introduced by Christ — there was no 
entrance save by the door of repentance : none could become par- 
takers of its privileges without a change of heart. The Baptist's 
censures were directly aimed at the religious formalism, and re- 
liance upon external privileges, which then characterised the Jew- 
ish people, who were warned that the axe was about to be laid to 
the root of the trees, and the sifting fan applied to the floor, with 
the intent of detecting and casting away whatever should be in- 
wardly unsound ; and that no carnal connexion with Abraham 
could, of itself, entitle them to the blessings to be purchased by 
Christ's death, and bestowed upon believers in Him. Might it not 
have been at once gathered by those who heard the Baptist's words, 
that the future dispensation, of which he announced the approach, 
was not to be primarily an external and visible, but an inward and 
spiritual, one? 

The lesser luminary speedily disappeared to make way for the 
greater. The first notice which we have of our Lord's ministry 

* " The Pharisees demanded of our Lord when the kingdom of God should come. He 
shows, in His reply, that the access of the religious system so represented as a kingdom to 
the individual is, in the first instance, hy means of an internal work: without which no man 
may enter therein. It is when the principle by virtue of which we become obedient subjects 
of the kingdom of God i3 already born within us, that the corresponding outward develop- 
ment is required."- Gladstone's Church Principles, <fcc. p. 112. Precisely so; and this is 
all that Protestants affirm. 



142 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









connects it immediately with that of John : "From that time" (the 
time of John's imprisonment), "Jesus began to preach, and to say, 
Eepent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."* In this, its 
negative aspect, the teaching of our Lord was identical with that 
of his forerunner. Like the Baptist, He insisted upon the neces- 
sity of an inward change as a preparation for his kingdom ; like 
him, too, He unveiled the hypocrisy of the Pharisee, and im- 
pressed upon his hearers the worthlessness of external religionism, 
apart from purity of heart. He released the conscience from the 
yoke of traditionary observances not prescribed by Scripture, and 
stimulated it by unfolding the full extent and spirituality of the 
Moral Law. These are confessedly the leading features of our 
Lord's teaching, so far as it was opposed to the prevailing for- 
malism of the age ; and in this light it appears as the summing up 
of all that the prophets had urged on the same topics ; as the sup- 
plement, not the subversion, of the earlier revelation (Matt. v. 17.). 
As the prophetic instruction is more spiritual than that of the 
Law, so the teaching of Christ is more spiritual than that of the 
prophets : and thus the progressive tendency of revelation from 
the form to the " spirit and truth" of religion maintains itself to 
the end. 

The question, in what sense and how far Christ was a lawgiver, 
so much debated between the Komish and Protestant theologians 
of the seventeenth century, appears to admit of an easy reply. 
The tendency of Komanism to transform the Gospel into a legal 
institute, like that of Moses, is perceptible in the emphasis with 
which the Council of Trent affirms that Christ came, not only as a 
redeemer to save, but as a lawgiver to be obeyed f ; but the obedi- 
ence due to Christ in his kingly office can be sufficiently secured 
without making Him a lawgiver in the sense in which Moses was. 
In this sense, Christ did not appear in the character of a lawgiver ; 
on the contrary, He "is the end," exhibiting in Himself the scope 
f and the fulfilment, "of the law for righteousness to every one that 
believeth."^: Had it been His purpose to establish a new law 
resembling that of Moses, he would, as has been well remarked, 
have delivered, in the first instance, to his followers, a system of 
rites and observances, together with a ceremonial law and a ritual, 



* Matt. iv. 17. 

t " Si quis dixerit Christum Jesum a Deo hominibus datum fuisse ut redemptorem cui 
fidant, non etiam ut legislatorem cui obediant, anathema sit" De Justif. Can. 21. 
X Rom. x. 4. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST'S AND CHRIST'S MINISTRIES. 143 

analogous to that given at Sinai * Such a system is indeed 
attributed to Him ; but not by the writers of the New Testament 
Scriptures. A ceremonial law finds no place in the original 
promulgation of Christianity. The only two visible ordinances 
which Christ did appoint, He appointed, as will be shewn here- 
after, on principles very different from those which govern a legal 
system of religion. Even the Sermon upon the Mount, which of 
all our Lord's discourses bears the greatest resemblance to a new 
code of law, is not so in reality. It does not "take the place"f of 
the law inscribed on the tables of stone : it is that very law itself 
in its full spiritual meaning. It is a republication of the moral 
Law by Him who had formerly delivered it at Sinai, and who now 
once more delivered it, freed from the false glosses and expositions 
of the Pharisees, and with its inner spirit more perfectly unfolded. 
Viewed in this light, this authoritative exposition of the moral 
Law was directed to awaken the conscience of the hearers long 
benumbed under the spell of formalism, and lead them, under a 
conviction of sin, to Himself, the Saviour of sinners. But the 
discourse is more than a spiritual exposition of the original Law : 
it contains an element which does not belong to the Law at all as 
such. The Law, in its own proper nature, requires and com- 
mands, without recognising man's weakness or offering him assist- 
ance ; but in Christ's new Law, — if we will call it so — the grace of 
the Gospel is either presupposed or offered. For to pronounce the 
"poor in spirit," those "that mourn," those "that hunger and 
thirst after righteousness," "blessed;" what is this but to set forth 
the efficacy of repentance, and faith ? To direct men to call upon 
God as their Heavenly Father, to expect forgiveness of sin from 
Him, and to rely upon his providence for the supply of their 
temporal necessities ; what is this but to presuppose that they are 
reconciled to Him by faith in His son Jesus Christ. The promise 
that prayer shall be heard is a strictly evangelical one: it is a 
.declaration of God's unmerited goodness ; it presumes, on the part 
of the suppliant, a sense of spiritual neediness, which itself is a 
gift of grace ; and on God's part, the appointment of a mediator, 
through whose intervention prayer becomes acceptable. In this 
particular point of view, the Sermon upon the Mount is rather the 

* Nitzsch, Protestant Beantwort, <fcc, p. 198. 

t " If the two tables of stone which contained the law are destroyed, yet the Sermon on 
the Mount takes their place; if though Moses is gone, Christ is come ;"&c. &o. Newman's Ser- 
mons, vol. iv. serm. 18. The passage, written before the author had become a Romanist, 
is worthy of perusal, as illustrating the substantial affinities of systems of doctrine. 



144 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 






full portraiture of Christian sanctity than a repetition of the law : 
it sets forth the standard at which the Christian — he upon whose 
heart the law is supposed to be already written by the Spirit of 
God — should aim * 

So far as Christ, has delivered to us the nature and extent of 
evangelical righteousness, as distinguished from that of the Scribes 
and Pharisees, and bestows upon believers grace for the fulfilment 
of that righteousness, He may be called a lawgiver ; but this is 
not the sense intended by the theologians of Eome. What is 
meant is, that Christ was the author of a new visible system, 
founded on the same principles as the old one ; by incorporation 
in which salvation is to be attained.f How wide of the truth this 
notion is, will be evident to every reader of the Gospels. The 
real character in which Christ appeared was that of a rabbi, or 
teacher; an office which had no necessary connexion with the 
ceremonial law, or the priesthood. This is a very important fea- 
ture of our Lord's ministry, viewed as introductory to the Gospel 
dispensation. For thus was formally established, in the person of 
the Saviour Himself, the Word of God as the chief instrument, 
under the new economy, of drawing men to God. Christ Himself, 
the Eternal Word, appears as a preacher of His own approaching 
spiritual kingdom : He invites to Himself the weary and heavy 
laden that they may have rest ; He promises everlasting life to 
those who shall accept the invitation. No one comes to him ex- 
cept the Father draw him; but everyone that has heard and 
learned of the Father does come to Him, and to those who thus 
come He gives life. Hence is to be explained the peculiar em- 
phasis which our Lord everywhere laid upon faith, as the condi- 
tion of the exercise of His divine power, whether the case that 
required it was a bodily or a spiritual one. For faith and the 
Word are correlative terms ; and, therefore, simultaneously with the 
installation of the Word, as one chief instrument of the Spirit, faith 
was constituted the essential connecting link between the sinner 
and Christ, and this at a time when faith could not possibly mean 
an assent of the understanding to certain doctrines, but, simply, 
trust in a person. " What shall we do that we might work the 



* See Bp. Taylor's sermon upon Matt v. 20. 

t " Certum hoc est, Christum in ministerio praedicationis suae non solum evangelium de 
gratuita peccatorum remissione, scd etiam legem auditoribus suis proposuisse, eandem a 
corruptelis pharisaicis vindicasse et pristino nitori restituisse. Verum de eo non quaerunt 
pontifices, quando Christum legislatorem fuisse pugnant, sed ideo et hoc respectu id 
norainisipsi competere statuunt, quod novas quasdam leges promulgaverit, ac legem Mosaicam 
perfcctionem reddiderlt." — Gerhard, loc. 15. cap. 7. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST'S AND CHRISES MINISTRIES. 1-15 

works of God ?"* the question expresses the spirit of the ancient 
dispensation in which, not the Word, but a course of coercive 
discipline, — the "bodily exercise" of the law, — was the external 
means whereby the Spirit operated on men's hearts ; and not to 
believe, but to do, was the special requirement of God in reference 
to His people. Equally indicative of the spirit of the new 
economy is the reply, " This is the work of God, that ye believe 
upon him whom He hath sent ;" the reception of purchased and 
proffered blessings, not the performance of prescribed works, or, 
as St. Paul calls it, "the law of faith," being the distinctive feature 
of the Christian life. 

True it is that the Jew also had the Word of God, as delivered 
to him from time to time by the prophets ; but he had it not as a 
standing ordinance, and means of grace : the ministry of it was 
not a perpetual, still lest a predominant, feature of the legal dis- 
pensation. The Levitical ceremonial, and the temple worship, 
constituted the distinctive and permanent service of the Jewish 
system; while the prophetic function, which approaches more 
nearly to that of the Christian ministry, was irregular in its 
exercise, and often intermitted for long periods of time. Under 
the Christian economy the temple service is not symbolical, but 
verbal ;+ the Word now occupying the place which the Levitical 
ritual did formerly. By the Word, regeneration is effected, or 
begun ; % by it the Church is built up, and advances to perfection, 
it being for this end that "prophets," "evangelists," "pastors," 
and "teachers," all ministers of the Word, have been given by 
Christ ; § by it the Church is, or ought to be, governed, and con- 
troversies decided. All this is plain enough from Scripture ; but 
the point now to be observed is, that the approaching change, by 
which the external instrument of the Spirit was to become 
spiritual in nature, addressing itself to the understanding, not to 
the senses, was inaugurated by Christ himself. For His was a 
ministry of teaching, not of type and ceremonial ; as was that also 
of His immediate followers and assistants, the twelve and the 
seventy who were sent forth " to preach the kingdom of God." || 
The ministration of the Spirit through the Word commenced 
while Christ was upon earth, though it did not assume its properly 

* John, vi. 28. 

T On this subject some good remarks will be found in Hinds' " Three Temples," pp. 83 — 96. 

X 1 Pet. i. 23. Jas. i. 18. 2 Ephes. iy. 2. Ae. 

U Luke, ix. 2. 

10 



146 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



sacramental character until Christ had been glorified, and the 
Spirit Himself had come to take Christ's place upon earth. 

To believe upon Christ — that is, to recognise in Him the Son 
of God, the Saviour of the world — was the great act of faith 
which the Jews of our Lord's time were called upon to exercise, 
the principal part of the final probation to which the nation was 
subjected. And the requirement was well suited to try the moral 
habits of men. For what Christ really was — His essential glory 
— was not preceptible to the eye of sense, being hidden under the 
veil of His earthly humiliation. To the unenlightened eye the 
" consolation of Israel" was but Jesus of Nazareth, the son of the 
carpenter, whose father, and mother, and brethren, they knew: 
His visible appearance corresponding with the predictions of pro- 
phecy, that he should " grow up as a tender plant, and a root out 
of a dry ground ; without form, comeliness, or any beauty that 
men should desire him." * Hence the fallaciousness of the infer- 
ence, that, because the Word became flesh, the Church must be (in 
the Eomish sense) a visible corporation : a favourite line of argu- 
ment with the modern school of Eomanists. For, if it be un- 
doubtedly true that the Word was made flesh, it is not less true 
that to discern that Jesus of Nazareth was the eternal Word re- 
quired the eye of faith, not of sight : it was not in that which 
could be seen in Him that the essential glory of the Saviour 
resided. Multitudes saw Christ " after the flesh," heard His word, 
and witnessed His miracles, who yet never beheld in Him the 
Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world : " He was in the 
world, and the world knew him not."f If some perceived what 
He was, it was owing to a special work of the Holy Spirit, un- 
sealing their eyes. The faith of Peter, for example, which led to 
the confession, " Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God," 
was a divine gift : "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh 
and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is 
in heaven.":): Let it be granted, for argument's sake, that the 
Church is the perpetual incarnation of Christ upon earth, it must 
yet be remembered that it was possible to see Christ outwardly, 
without apprehending Him spiritually ; that His real glory — " the 
glory as of the only begotten of the Father" — lay remote from 
sense: that Jesus, as "God manifest in the flesh," was an object, 
not of sight, but of faith; — which is precisely what Protestants 
affirm of His body, the Church. 



* Is. liii. 2. 
t John, i. 10. 



X Matt xvi. 17. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST'S AND CHRIST'S MINISTRIES. 147 

Finally, it is worthy of remark, that, as in the prophetic teach- 
ing, the more interior the character which religion assumes, the 
more of Christian doctrine does the revelation contain ; so in the 
ministry of Christ, in which, both in the Saviour's person and 
teaching, the perfect pattern of evangelical righteousness is set 
forth, every essential doctrine of the Gospel was promulgated. 
The doctrines of the Trinity, of the distinct personality of the Holy 
Ghost, of redemption through the death of the incarnate Son, of 
the necessity of the new birth, and of a resurrection of the body 
to life, or to death eternal ; all these, the distinctive verities of 
the new economy were enunciated by Christ Himself ; and the 
teaching of the apostles is but a fuller exposition of the heads 
of doctrine furnished in the discourses of their divine Master. 
What remains to be said concerning the specific character of our 
Lord's doctrinal teaching, will more fitly come under a subse- 
quent section. 

And here, before passing from the old dispensation to the new, 
we may pause for a moment to take a cursory review of the 
ground passed over. The chief point which the foregoing observa- 
tions have been directed to establish is, that the revelation of God 
has from the first been progressive, the direction being from a 
less to a more spiritual and interior character. We have seen 
how the discipline of the Law, especially when considered in 
conjunction with the word of prophecy, must have worked 
towards the formation and development, in the pious part 
of the Jewish people, of a religion which, if we cannot call it 
Christian, yet contained in itself the chief elements of a Christian 
spirit ; and just in proportion as it did so, receded from the legal 
system, under the shelter of which it had grown up. The moral 
law convinced the worshipper of sin, and thereby led him to long 
for a spiritual cleansing from sin ; the rites of the ceremonial law 
suggested the idea, and raised an expectation, of such an atone- 
ment yet to come : impressions which were fixed and strengthened 
by the prophetic revelation. But while thus training its pupils, 
the legal system paved the way to its own abolition, and only 
waited the appearance of Him, who is the end of the law, to 
resign its charge to the liberty and responsibilities of religious 
manhood. "To Him give all the prophets witness;" and in pro- 
portion as they bring out to view the distinctive features of the 
new covenant, do they inculcate the superior importance of the 
moral law, and dwell upon religion in its personal aspect. In the 
fulness of time the Saviour appeared, Himself made under the 



148 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 






law, but not the promulgator of a new law intended to supply the 
place of that which, having decayed and waxed old, was ready to 
vanish away. Both His forerunner and Himself follow in the 
track of the prophets, and announce the approaching kingdom 
of God as, primarily, an internal operation of the Spirit upon the 
heart of man. At the same time, what was wanting in the pro- 
phetic anticipations of Christian doctrine was supplied, what was 
obscure in them was cleared up by Christ Himself; who thus, as 
none before Him had done, brought life and immortality to light. 
The mode of operation proper to the new economy, •*- viz., the 
ministration of the Spirit through the Word, as an instrument, 
was both established and exemplified in the Kedeemer's own per- 
sonal ministry. All preliminary dispositions having been thus 
made, the next step in God's dealings with mankind was to be the 
actual introduction of the new dispensation itself; and surely we 
can already pronounce, with confidence, that whatever features it 
may present, they will not be those of the elementary legal system, 
which had long since become antiquated : it will not be a return 
to the rudiments of religion which had sufficed for the spiritual 
infancy of the people of God. Should the outward theocracy 
which controlled men's actions be found giving place in Christian- 
ity to an inner one — the theocracy of the Spirit administered 
through the Word, — it is only what we have been led to expect 
from an observation of the course which revelation has held from 
its commencement. How far these anticipations are actually re- 
alised in the Gospel dispensation, is the question to be now consid- 
ered. But before quitting this part of the discussion, we may ob- 
serve that the view that has been taken of the progressive course 
of revelation removes a difficulty connected with the present con- 
dition of the Jews, which probably has occurred to most students 
of the history of that people, — viz. that whereas, in their former 
calamities, idolatry was the sin that provoked God to anger, in 
their last and greatest one, no such sin could be laid to their 
charge : the Jews after their return from the captivity exhibiting 
a strong detestation of idolatrous practices. True it is, that the 
Jews, in the time of Christ, were as remarkable for their abhor- 
rence of idolatry as their forefathers had been for their propensity 
to it; and had religious illumination remained amongst them what 
it was when the law was first promulgated, we might be at a loss 
to understand why they were at length cut off from being the peo- 
ple of God. But it had not so remained. The full import of the 
Sinaitic covenant — the nature of the religious service which God 



JOHN" THE BAPTIST'S AND CHRIST'S MINISTRIES. 149 

requires — had been unfolded by the prophets ; who at the same 
time, for the consolation of those who felt that they could not 
attain to the required standard of righteousness, had given promise 
of a better covenant, to be founded in the person of Messiah, under 
which sin should be forgiven, and strength imparted as a matter of 
grace. It was for their rejection of this new covenant — a rejection 
proceeding from a distaste to the moral law, as fully exemplified in 
Christ — that the predicted judgment finally fell upon the Jews. 
To the prohibitions of the law in reference to idolatry they gave 
heed; but the moral duties of it — "judgment, justice, and mercy" 
— they disregarded ; and these were the duties which by their own 
prophets had been enforced, as infinitely superior in value to the 
legal rites. Sunk in religious formalism, they obstinately clung to 
the letter, to the disparagement of the Spirit ; displayed an equal 
indifference to the warnings and promises of prophecy; and at 
length rejected Him who came, not to destroy the law and the 
prophets, but to fulfil them. Moses and Elias had both borne 
witness to Christ, as their fulfilment ; but the Jews, with a blind- 
ness which was the consequence, and the punishment, of moral de- 
pravity, clung to the shadow, while they cast away the substance ; 
and though they did well to adhere to the literal commandment, 
were rejected because they did not do more, — viz. accept Christ 
as their Lord and Saviour. 



150 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 



Section I. 



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 



In the opening chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the Chris- 
tian dispensation is seen in actual operation; for that with the 
descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost that dispensa- 
tion properly commences will probably be admitted by all parties. 
Moreover, in these chapters the Church of Christ is first spoken 
of as in actual existence. What in our Lord's discourses is a 
matter of anticipation or prophecy, here appears as a matter of 
fact. Though not at first fully aware of the great change which 
had taken place in their religious standing, still less of its ultimate 
consequences, the first believers at once formed a separate com- 
munity in the bosom of the Jewish theocracy ; a community hav- 
ing, for its distinctive marks, adherence to the Twelve Apostles, 
baptism in the name of Christ, and the celebration of the Lord's 
Supper. Thenceforth the Church becomes a matter of history; 
and its history is nothing less than that of the vicissitudes, pros- 
perous and adverse, which the kingdom of God upon earth has in 
the lapse of ages passed through. 

It has already been remarked that, far from intending to establish 
a mere invisible fellowship of the Spirit, our Lord contemplated 
His Church as having a visible existence, His followers as collected 
into societies. With this view, He Himself instituted certain ex- 
ternal badges of Christian profession, to come into use when they 
should be needed, and took measures to qualify a small and select 
company of believers, by attaching them constantly to His person 
while His earthly ministry lasted, and giving them a formal com- 
mission with extraordinary powers, when He left the world, to 
preside over the affairs and direct the organisation of Christian 
societies. These essential conditions of the existence of any regular 
society we find from the very first in being in the Church : the 
Apostles were the officers, and, collectively, the organ of the com- 
munity ; members were admitted into it by baptism ; and they 



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 151 

testified their continuance therein by participating in the sacra- 
ment of Christ's body and blood. As we advance further in the 
inspired history, we find additions made to these simple elements 
of social fellowship ; the organisation of the Christian society be- 
comes more complex and systematic; questions of polity and 
order occupy no small portion of the apostolic epistles ; and we 
have every reason to believe, if not from Scripture alone, yet from 
the unanimous voice of authentic history, that, towards the close 
of the Apostolic age, Christianity had almost everywhere crystal- 
lised itself into a certain definite and well known form of ecclesias- 
tical polity. 

These are facts which cannot be gainsayed ; and the Eomanist 
triumphantly appeals to them as confirmatory of his theory of the 
Church. And true it is, that if that theory merely affirmed that 
the Cnurch is necessarily visible, and to be distinguished by cer- 
tain external notes, it would rest on most certain evidence of 
Scripture. But the Eomanist affirms much more than this: he 
maintains that the true being of the Church — its specific differ- 
ence as compared with other societies — lies in its visible charac- 
teristics ; and that the form and the spirit are so inseparably united, 
that to introduce any alteration into the one would be to destroy 
the other. It is needless to add that this is also the fundamental 
notion which lies at the root of the so-called Church system. 
Obviously we have here a distinct question : for it does not follow 
that because the Church is necessarily visible, its essential being 
lies in that which gives it visible existence. The strong presump- 
tive evidence against this view, which the course of revelation 
under the old dispensation furnishes, may indeed be rebutted by 
evidence of an opposite character, drawn from the facts of the 
Christian economy : but it is clear that such evidence must be of 
the most convincing kind, for the theory comes to us, burdened 
with an cl priori improbability. To the facts, then, of the Christian 
dispensation we now turn. 

By way of clearing the path before us for the discussion which 
is to follow, let us endeavour to conceive what the characteristic 
features of a religious system might be expected to be, which, on 
the one hand, should be embodied in a visible society or societies, 
and, on the other, instead of working, like the Mosaic system, 
from without inwards, should have its essential being within, and 
work from within outwards: a system, that is, in which that 
which gives it visible existence should be the evidence and mani • 
festation, not the formative instrument, of the life within. 



152 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



And. in the first place, admitting that such a system must have 
ritual ordinances, and be embodied in a visible polity, we should 
expect, not only that they would be fewer in number, but that 
their relation to the inner life, or spirit, which unites the members 
of the community, would be different from that which is charac- 
teristic of a system like that of Moses : that, instead of being in- 
tended to impart from without a specific direction to religious 
sentiment, they would presuppose the existence of that sentiment 
in some maturity of growth ; and, as has just been observed, be 
rather signs of its presence, and means of strengthening it, than a 
mould of discipline by which it is to be, in the first instance, im- 
pressed. As regards polity, in particular, we should expect to find 
the visible organisation of such a system the result not so much 
of an external prescription, as of an effort on the part of the life 
within to throw itself out into a suitable organic form. 

Again, were it competent to the founder of such a system, in 
selecting the ordinances and polity by which it should be dis- 
tinguished, to adopt either new ones or such as his followers had 
been familiar with, as being based upon actually existing customs, 
we should expect to find him taking the latter course : that is, the 
system would be made to differ as little as possible, as regards 
external marks of distinction, from the existing one out of which 
it was to spring, such an antecedent system being supposed to be 
in existence. For it is obvious that a complete apparatus of new 
institutions is the proper instrument for working upon human 
nature from without inwards. If this be the mode of operation 
which a religious legislator proposes to adopt, he sets out by en- 
deavouring to effect as complete a separation as possible between 
his own and the surrounding systems of religion. His aim being 
to interrupt the course of custom, and to give an entirely new 
bent to the religious life, he will isolate those for whom he legis- 
lates, by fencing them round with institutions altogether different 
from those to which they have been accustomed. Thus, for exam- 
ple, there is throughout the law of Moses a studied multiplication 
of rites and ceremonies up to that time unknown to the Israelites : 
the system seems needlessly loaded with observances, until we 
recollect that it was intended to repel assimilation with the modes 
of religious worship then prevalent, and to stamp a new character 
upon the Jewish people. If a new religion, then, seems to avoid, 
as much as possible, any deviation, as regards its rites and polity, 
from existing customs and practices ; if it appear by no means 
solicitous to effect a violent separation, in this particular, between 



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 153 

the old and the new state of things ; it may be inferred that its 
true being lies not in its forms, but in its interior life. 

Once more, it would be natural to suppose that, under such a 
system, the work of external organisation would be one of time, 
and advance gradually ; additions being made from time to time, 
as necessity should require, or circumstances render desirable. 
For a natural development of this kind is incompatible with the 
idea of a religious institution, the object of which is to grasp 
human nature with a firm external hold, and to repress instead 
of giving liberty to its interior impulses. Presuming either that 
no such interior impulse is present, or that it is immature and 
feeble, an institution of the latter kind aims at supplying its 
absence or feebleness by imposing an artificial frame-work of 
institutions, fully wrought out in detail, and minutely elaborated, 
which allows no free play to the religious life, and discourages 
any spontaneous movement in the work of organisation. A legal 
system is neither plastic nor self-developing : it is given from 
without and given uno afflatu, complete in all its parts : the only 
real development of which it is capable is that of the spirit which 
its rites and forms embody, while the form itself remains what it 
was when first delivered. Of this kind manifestly were the insti- 
tutions of Moses. The law was given fully digested, and wrought 
out into particulars; and no part of the Jewish polity or worship 
was left to be gradually developed according to the exigencies of 
times and circumstances. The entire system, such as it was, was 
at once imposed upon the people for whom it was devised ; and a 
solemn prohibition was added against the introduction of unau- 
thorised additions or alterations into the original draught, as it 
came from the hands of the divine Legislator. 

Let us now apply these tests to the Church of Christ, as it ap- 
pears in visible existence in the inspired pages ; from its first 
formal constitution on the day of Pentecost to the period when its 
polity is found to have assumed a definite shape : a period extend- 
ing to about A. D. 70. 






154 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



Section II. 



; 






THE SACRAMENTS. 

Two ritual ordinances, and two only, are recorded to have been 
instituted by Christ Himself as distinctive of His religion, — the 
sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. That these ordi- 
nances were intended to be perpetual notes of His Church ; that, 
in point of fact, the celebration of them is coeval with Christianity 
itself, and has never, for any length of time, or in any large por- 
tion of the Church, been interrupted ; these are points upon which, 
between Eomanists and Protestants, no difference exists. To the 
visible notes which emanated from Christ Himself we may perhaps 
add — though it stands not in the same degree of importance — 
the administration of discipline ; for the evidence is altogether in 
favour of that interpretation of Matt, xviii. 15 — 19., which makes 
the passage to contain an anticipatory provision for the exercise of 
discipline in Christian societies, to be applied in practice when the 
societies themselves should come into existence. 

The question now before us is, in what relation do these ordi- 
nances stand to the system of which they are a part ? And the 
first thing to be remarked is, that had it been the principal design 
of our Lord to establish a new visible system of religion, distinct 
from the Jewish institutions, we may take upon ourselves to say 
that He would have instituted other ordinances than these, and in 
a different manner. For what could be less fitted to constitute the 
ceremonial of such a system than the two sacraments, according to 
their original institution and idea ? 

In the first place, neither of these ordinances were, as regards 
the outward sign, new appointments : they were founded on actual- 
ly existing and well-known customs. /Baptism, in one form or 
another, had long been in common use among the Jews ; and if it 
had not, the ministry of John the Baptist must have familiarised 
them with it as a symbol of repentance. Thus Christ selected, as " 
the initiatory sacrament of His Church, an ordinance differing, as 
' * regards the outward sign, in no respect from' the rite by which it 
was the custom to initiate a proselyte into the Jewish religion,* 

* See Wall's History of Infant Baptism; Introduction. 



THE SACKAMENTS. 155 

and that which His own forerunner had adopted to be the symbol 
of his ministry. So it was also with the other sacrament. The 
Passover, with its attendant ceremonies, the evening meal, the 
breaking of bread, and the drinking of wine, was already in exist- 
ence when Christ came; and it was while celebrating the feast 
with His disciples, in compliance with the injunctions of the Law, 
that He took occasion to set apart one of its customary rites, to be 
the sacrament of His body and blood. In both cases, the visible 
material from which He was to select the symbols of fellowship 
with Himself was in being, and He merely transferred existing 
ceremonies to a new use. Wherein then lay the essence of the 
transformation by which the Jewish rite became a Christian sacra- 
ment ? for that a vast change passed over the baptismal washing 
of John and the paschal breaking of bread when they became 
Christian baptism and the Lord's Supper, no Christian doubts. It 
lay simply in the fact of Christ's having attached to them His 
name, His remembrance, His promise, thereby constituting them 
pledges and means of grace. The change wrought was indeed an 
essential one, but of a spiritual nature: the action remained the 
same ; it was the import, the spiritual efficacy, in which the differ- 
ence lay. In this point of view, the famous aphorism, Accedit ver- 
bum ad elementum et fit Sacramentum, contains important truth ; 
for it was, in fact, the accession of the Word, the divine command, 
and the divine presence, to old and familiar symbols that made the 
latter Christian sacraments, precisely as, by virtue of the promise, 
" Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am 
I in the midst," a synagogue of Jewish believers was transformed 
into a Christian congregation. Moreover, to neither of the ordi- 
nances in question were appended those circumstantials of ritual 
order which characterised the appointments of the Law, and upon 
an exact compliance with which the validity of the legal rites was 
suspended. Had Christ intended the sacraments to be ordinances 
the same in kind as those of the Levitical worship, He would have 
delivered them accompanied with a liturgical ceremonial; He 
would have multiplied the details of the ritual ; and -He would 
have committed the administration of them to a priestly caste, in 
whosejiands alone they should possess a covenanted validity. All 
this, we know, Christ actually is said to have done,* but not on the 
authority of the Christian Scriptures. To His Church, represented 

* " Itaque tradenduin est solie sacerdotibus potcstatcm datam cssout aacram eucharistiam 
confidant ac fidelibua distribuant." — Cat. Trid. p. 2. oap. 4. s. 72. 












156 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

in the Apostles ; He delivered the sacraments * Believers are to be 
baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; bap- 
tized Christians are to eat the bread and drink the cup, and thus to 
feed spiritually upon His body and blood. These simple direc- 
tions comprise all the particulars of the original institution. Who 
the proper persons are to administer the ordinances ; with what 
accompanying ceremonial; whether the elements are to be conse- 
crated, and, if so, with what form of words ; — for a determination 
of these points we search the record in vain. Nor is the omission 
supplied by His Apostles. Where, in the New Testament, do we 
find any prescribed form of consecration apart from which the Eu- 
charist is to be deemed inefficacious? We are not, of course, 
speaking of what the law of order may require, or render ultimately 
necessary, but of what is divinely prescribed upon the subject. No 
such prescription is found in the inspired writings. In a later age, 
indeed, eucharistic liturgies — in like manner as canons regulating 
matters of ecclesiastical polity — are found ascribed to the Apos- 
tles ; both being the productions of an age in which the Christian 
Church was fast sinking into a legal system, in all essential respects 
resembling that of Moses. . 

If we suppose the direction of Christ, Matt, xviii. 15 — 19., to 
have a reference to church discipline, what has been said concern- 
ing the sacraments applies equally to this latter appointment. For 
in conferring the power of excommunication, not upon the pastors 
of the Church only, but upon the whole body, consisting of both 
pastors and people, our Lord merely turned to a Christian use the 
well-known existing practice of synagogical excommunication, of 
which such frequent mention is made in the New Testament.f 
His allusions would at once explain themselves to a Jew : the very 
terms He made use of — binding and loosing — were derived from 
the practice of the synagogue. 

But in the next place, and principally: — the place which the 
Christian sacraments occupy in reference to the implantation and 
maintenance of the new life in Christ, is such as essentially to dis- 
tinguish them from the institutions of a system, the characteristic 
of which is to work upon man from without inwards. For what 
is the principle or rationale of their spiritual operation ? Not, in 

* Matt, xxviii. 19. Ov ptr Ueipoyv 5i p6vov tlirtv taeaBaX, dXAa koX pera navruiv rwi/ /xer' 
tKtivovs iriurtvovTUtv' ov yap <5>) cwj r>K avvTt\ciaf rov aicovog ol dn6<TTo\oi ptveiv epcWov. riXX 
US ivi oupari diaXeyerat roTj maro'is.— Clirys. in loo. 

t See John, ix. 22., xvi. 2., xii, 4. ; Luke, vi. 22. Also, Vitringa De Syn. Vet. lib. iii. 
p. 1. c. 9. 



THE SACRAMENTS. 157 

the first instance, to communicate spiritual life, but to be signs and 
seals of it, when, by other instruments, called into being : to pre- 
serve, nourish, and perfect it, when already in existence. Accord- 
ing to the terms of the original institution, neither of these ordi- 
ances — Baptism and the Lord's Supper — was to be administered 
save to those concerning whom the presumption might be cherish- 
ed that they had living faith in Christ, and were partakers of His 
Spirit. (Exceptional cases, in which it may be supposed lawful to 
deviate from the rule are for the present left out of view.) " He 
that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved :" this is the divinely 
established relation between the new life and its visible sign; 
which, it is needless to say, belongs equally to the other sacra- 
ment. As to discipline, it is to be administered by the Church, — 
i. e. a congregation of faithful men, men presumed to have saving 
faith in Christ. True it is, that in after ages the Church took upon 
herself to dispense with the internal preparation of the heart, 
teaching that the sacraments are effectual, ex opere operato, and im- 
press a spiritual character, sine bono rnotu utentis, or irrespectively 
of the moral state of the recipient ; but she did so without the 
warrant, nay contrary to the plainest declarations, of Scripture. 
Had this been the intended place of the sacraments in the order 
of salvation, Christ would have instituted them at the threshold 
of His ministry ; but He did not do so. First (and in reference to 
the point under discussion the fact is of great significance,) He at- 
tached, by the secret operation of His grace, the twelve to His 
person ; He walked with them, taught them, instituted a living 
communion between them and Himself, and gave them faith to 
perceive that He was the Son of God ; and then, when, by His 
personal intercourse and instructions, He had brought them to 
some ripeness of religious knowledge, He delivered to them the 
pledge and seal of their fellowship with Him and with each other. 
The place which the institution of the sacraments occupies in our 
Lord's ministry is quite in accordance with the doctrinal state- 
ments of Scripture respecting their mode of operation ; the sum 
of which statements is, that the Word received in faith must pre- 
pare the way for the right reception of the ordinance. 

But the subject here touched upon is so important in itself, and 
so closely connected with the differences of view under discussion, 
that it deserves to be considered more at large. ISTo one can have 
studied with attention the controversial works of Komish theo- 
logians — or of those who adopt, in substance, the Eomish theory 
— without perceiving that one of the chief doctrinal grounds on 



|JI 












158 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



which their view of the Church rests, is what has been called, in 
modern times, sometimes the sacramental system, and sometimes 
the theory of the corporate life; for the thing signified by these 
expressions is one and the same. The fundamental idea which 
both are intended to convey is, that spiritual life is derived to the 
individual, in the first instance, not from union with Christ, but 
from union with the visible church : life coming directly from the 
branches, and* only mediately from the vine. Sometimes indeed 
language is used from which it might seem that by the expression 
corporate life more than this is meant ; that under it there lurks 
an indistinct idea of the Church's being, apart from the individuals 
of which it is composed, a moral person standing to Christians in 
the same relation in which a mother does to her children * 
Strange as this personification of an abstraction may appear when 
nakedly propounded, it has proved, in skilful hands, an instru- 
ment of immense power ; as every page of Church history testi- 
fies. To the Church Christians owe their spiritual birth ; the 
Church educates her children ; decides for them in doubtful cases ; 
nourishes them with her ordinances ; prays for them ; and, if need 
be, corrects them : — admitting that there is a sense in which all 
this holds good, we have only to recollect the practical use which 
was made of the idea by the Church of the middle ages, to 
be convinced of the danger of incautious language on sacred 
subjects. That no such thing exists as the Church, considered 
as an abstract personality, performing acts of thought and will 
distinct from those of the individual members who compose 
the body, it is needless to remark. So convenient, however, was 






* "The individual in his closet addresses the Saviour; and precious is the privilege of his 
perpetual access to his Lord; but more elevated still is the public worship, because, as an 
individual, he stands in a lower position than that which belongs to him in the Church as a 
part of her incorporate life." (Is it meant that the change of place from the closet to the 
public assembly alters the individual's standing in God's sight ? Is he only a member of the 
Church when engaged in social worship?) "He is not, as an individual, so assured of his 
being wedded to Christ, as is the church of her mystical and indissoluble relations with Him ; 
and she acts upon this, not supposition merely, but moral certainty of His favour, and of 

vital union with Him with a degree of confidence which for the body is safe, 

but for the individual is intoxicating." — Gladstone's Church Principles, Ac. p. 130. The 
mode of speaking of the Church, of which this passage is an illustration, and which has its 
root in the natural realism of the human mind, is of very ancient date : "Cum autem nativitas 
ChristiaJiorum in baptismo sit, baptismi autem generatio et sanctificatio apud solam sponsam 
Ohristi sit, quae parere spiritualiter et generare filios Deo possit, ubi et ex qua et cui natus 
est qui filius ecclesiae non est, ut habere quis Deum Patrem ante eccle^iam matrem." — Cyp. 
Epist. 74. Ad Pomp. So Augustin : — " Ecclesia quippe omues per baptismum parit, sive 
apud se, id est, ex utero suo,sive extra se de semine viri sui." — De Bap. cont Don. 1. i. s. 23., 
and in numberless other passages. 



THE SACRAMENTS. 159 

the fiction found in defending or concealing the flaws of the 
Church system, that theologians were unwilling to discover that it 
was a fiction ; and to this day, nothing is more common than the 
employment of it to avoid a difficulty or to silence an objection. 
Putting aside, however, this application of the term corporate life, 
t lere remains to be considered the other notion involved in the 
expression, which is, that the quickening influence of the Holy 
Spirit, which makes a man a member of Christ, is, in the first 
instance, derived from visible — that is, sacramental — union with 
the Church, the latter being in itself a depository of grace; that 
communion with the Head is to be attained through visible com- 
munion with the body ; that the way to Christ lies through the 
ordinances of the Church. 

Let this dogma be combined with that of the efficacy of the 
Sacraments ex opere operate, and from the combination, the Eomish 
conception of the Church will follow in the way of strict logical 
sequence. If sacramental union with the Church is the com- 
mencement of our union with Christ ; and, at the same time, to 
all who interpose no positive bar (non ponentibus obicem, — i.e., 
as the schoolmen explain it, not living in mortal sin,) the grace of 
the Sacraments, by the mere act of reception, is imparted, it being 
a matter of indifference whether or not the recipients possess the 
positive qualifications of repentance and faith ; it is obvious that 
the Church is no longer, according to the idea, a community of 
true believers, but must be defined by its visible characteristics, as 
an institution in which Sacraments are administered and received. 
Union with Christ, as all admit, involves the blessings of justi- 
fication and adoption : if, then, the appointed way to union with 
Christ lies through sacramental union with the Church, and nothing 
resembling what Protestants call faith is required for sacramental 
union with the Church, it follows that the justification and adoption 
thus attained are merely external relations, perfectly separable 
from internal sanctification by the Spirit, and that a man may be 
called a member of Christ who has no saving faith in Christ ; that 
is, in other words, that the Church, in its idea, comprehends both 
those who are and those who are not led by the Spirit of God. 
According to this system, the blessings which flow from incorpora- 
tion in Christ are bestowed upon all, however destitute they may be 
of sanctifying faith, who partake of the sacraments and sacramental 
ordinances; the Church being the interposed medium through 
which lies access to the Saviour. It is true that Romanists, as well 
as Protestants, teach that to salvation something more than this is 






160 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









necessary; but the sanctifying work of the Spirit with which 
salvation is connected is, on the Eomish hypothesis, subsequent, in 
point of time, to incorporation in the Church, and, therefore, to 
incorporation in Christ; and not only subsequent in time, but 
separable in idea : so that to be a member of Christ's body, or of 
Christ, by no means necessarily implies the being in a state of 
salvation. Hence it is but natural that the conception which 
Eomanists entertain of the Church should be, that it is a visible 
institution, provided with a complete apparatus of machinery for 
the rectification of fallen human nature ; an institution into which 
men are gathered promiscuously, in order that they may be 
brought under a course of spiritual discipline, which, if they are 
not wanting to themselves, will issue in their salvation. With 
some the course prescribed succeeds, and the end is attained ; in 
other instances it fails ; but whatever be the spiritual condition of 
those who belong to it, the institution itself remains the same, — 
pure, infallible, and indefectible. The first sacrament of incor- 
poration — baptism — unites man to Christ's mystical body, — 
that is, to Christ Himself; conferring upon them not increase of 
sanctifying, but sacramental, grace, or a spiritual capacity for per- 
forming holy actions (e. g. receiving the other sacraments), which 
spiritual capacity, however, is in itself a morally indifferent thing, 
— a mere power, which may be turned to good or to evil : * con- 
firmation arms the Christian soldier for the spiritual warfare : in 
the Eucharist — working still ex opere operato — he feeds upon the 
body of Christ : penance restores him when fallen : extreme 



* That the " baptismal regeneration" of Romanism contains nothing moral iu it lies on the 
face of the Tridentine formularies ; but it is worthy of remark, as illustrating the natural 
result of a certain well-known type of doctrine, that in the sermons of a distinguished convert 
to the Church of Rome, composed previously to his conversion, precisely the same neutral 
character is (potentially at least) attached to the spiritual effect of baptism. " Regeneration, 
I say, is a new birth, or the giving of a new nature. Now, let it be observed, there is noth- 
ing impossible in the thing itself (though we believe it is not so), but nothing impossible in 
the very notion of a regeneration being accorded even to impenitent sinners. I do not say 
regeneration in its fulness, for that includes in it perfect happiness and holiness, to which it 
tends from the first ; yet regeneration in a true and sufficient sense, in its primary qualities. 
For the essence" of regeneration is the communication of a higher and diviner nature ; and 
sinners may have this gift, though it would be a curse to them, not a blessing. The devils (!) 
have a nature thus higher and more divine than man, yet they are not preserved thereby 
from evil." — Newman's Sermons, vol. iii. serm. 16. Repulsive as such a view of regenera- 
tion is to the biblical Christian, it must be remembered that it is only the ultimate result of 
the dogma that regeneration can be present in an adult where there is no rectification of the 
will, or, in common language, change of heart. In Tridentine Romanism the revolting 
aspect of the theory is, in some measure, disguised by its dogma of the " impressed character," 
which in baptism is defined to be merely a passive spiritual power of receiving the Sacra- 
ments and other benefits of the Church. — See Ballarm. De Effect. Sac. o. 19. 



THE SACRAMENTS. 161 

unction dismisses him with the Church's passport to heaven : — 
such (the argument runs) are the means divinely appointed for the 
purpose of making individuals partakers of the benefits of Christ's 
passion and resurrection. And what is required in order to 
ensure their due operation ? Nothing but that the recipient place 
no positive hindrance in the way, and perform the prescribed act. 
Most consistently does the Church of Eome teach that a state of 
bliss follows not at once upon the Christian's dying in the Lord, — 
that is, in communion with His body, the Church ; and provides 
a place of purgatorial cleansing, where the moral change, apart 
from which a man might here be a member of Christ, but con- 
fessedly cannot enter heaven, may be effected. 

On the insurmountable difficulties under which these statements 
labour, — as, for instance, the difficulty of conceiving how he can 
be, in any proper sense of the words, a member of Christ, who is 
not a partaker of the Holy Spirit's sanctifying influences, it is 
needless, and would be here out of place, to enlarge; but the 
itgatov ipevdog, or fundamental error, of the whole theory, deserves 
our particular notice. In order to perceive clearly what it is, it 
will be necessary to enter a little more fully into the subject of the 
Christian's union with Christ ; to present a true view of which, is 
the professed object of the modern advocates of the sacramental 
system. 

So far as the maintainers of that system insist upon union with 
Christ, the glorified Redeemer, as one of the facts peculiar to the 
new dispensation, 'they take up a true position. 



In considering the characteristics of our Lord's teaching, it was 

11 



162 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



intimated that other peculiarities of it, besides those mentioned, 
remained to be noticed ; and, in fact, the great distinctive feature 
of it is the enunciation of the truth of which we are now speak- 
ing, — viz. that in Himself — God manifest in the flesh, the second 
Adam — is life eternal, and that, to become partakers of that life, 
we must be brought into union with Him, "Abide in me and I 
in you;" "whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath 
eternal life abiding in him, and I will raise him up at the last 
day:"* — whatever be meant by such expressions as these, they, 
as presupposing the incarnation of Christ, obviously contain a new 
idea, to which nothing is found in the Old Testament exactly 
corresponding. The union of the divine and human natures in 
the person of Christ was, in fact, the commencement of a new 
order of things, both in heaven and upon earth : then a new 
head — a second Adam — appeared amidst the ruins of humanity, 
by union with whom sinful man is to be brought into fellowship 
with God, and attain a higher state of dignity and privilege than 
that in which he was originally created. Union with Christ is the 
distinctive blessing of the Gospel dispensation, in which every 
other is comprised — justification, sanctification, adoption, and the 
future glorifying of our bodies : all these are but different aspects 
of the one great truth, that the Christian is one with Christ. 

In our Lord's discourse with Nicodemus, we have the first in- 
timation of this great mystery of the Gospel dispensation. When 
Christ declared to the Jewish rabbi that, " unless a man be born 
of water and of the spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God,"f 
he delivered a truth partly old and partly new ; or rather, a truth 
one aspect of which had a reference to the ancient, the other to 
the Christian, dispensation. For, notwithstanding the dictum of 
Hooker, and the general consent of the fathers in the literal inter- 
pretation of the passage, we may well doubt whether it contains a 
direct reference to baptism, as a ritual ordinance of Christianity. 
How could Nicodemus be blamed for not understanding the nature 
of a Christian Sacrament, when the latter had not been instituted, 
nor the redemption which it was intended to symbolize, and 
apply, accomplished? What Nicodemus, as a master of Israel^ 
ought to have known was what he could gather from the Old 
Testament writings ; and by the degree of religious illumination 
which they were calculated to impart, we must judge of our Lord's 
meaning. Now the Jewish scriptures contain no instruction upon 
the Christian Sacraments; but they do inculcate, in numerous 



* John, vi. 54. 



f John, iii. 5. 



THE SACRAMENTS. 

passages, the necessity of a great moral change, symbolized by the 
cleansing effect of water, and they connect with the coming of 
Messiah a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, in the first 
instance upon the house of Israel, and then upon the Gentiles.* 
In not recollecting such passages as these, Nicodemus merited the 
rebuke, "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these 
things ?" Thus far, the prophets had prepared the way -for the 
Gospel. But, in the whole expression, "born of water and of the 
spirit," an idea was involved, which Mcodemus never could have 
gathered from a perusal of the Old Testament alone, — -the idea of 
Christian regeneration, as distinguished from the same thing under 
the law. Christian regeneration is the first incorporation of the 
believer in Christ : and the true idea of it is such a union with 
the Son of God, in His glorified human nature, as confers upon 
the believer the like privilege of sonship. Christians are Christ's, 
brethren; "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ ;"f sons of 
God through adoption and grace ; their bodies, as well as souls 
and spirits, being taken up into spiritual union with Christ, in 
order that in due time they may be made like unto His. This is 
a real new birth ; for it is a transplanting oat of the old Adam, 
not merely into a new moral condition, but into the second Adam 
— the man Christ Jesus — the glorified Head of a new race of 
spiritual sons of God. And the vital power which effects the 
incorporation is that special efflux of the Holy Spirit which was 
withheld until Christ was glorified, and which, in order to dis- 
tinguish it from the spiritual influences vouchsafed under the law, 
may, with the utmost propriety, be called the regenerating influ- 
ence of the Holy Ghost. 

The aspect which regeneration assumes in the Old Testament is 
merely that of a moral change, or, as it is commonly called, a 
change of heart, the ^erdvoia of John the Baptist. In this sense 
which no doubt is the most important one, regeneration must have 
existed equally under the Law and under the Gospel; for it is 
with a moral change, or new heart, that salvation is connected, 
and salvation belonged to the pious Jew not less than to the Chris- 
tian. But in its positive aspect, as denoting the privilege of son- 
ship, through incorporation in Christ, it did not form part of the 
Jewish revelation. True it is that we occasionally find the nation, 
as distinguished from the heathen world, spoken of as collectively 
enjoying the privilege of adoption — as in the passage, "Israel is 

* la. i. 16. ; Jer. iv. 14.; Ezek. xxxvi. 25 — 27. ; Zech. xiii. 1. 
t Rom. viii. 17. 






164 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

my son, my first-bom" (Exodus, iv. 22.) ; but the privilege of the 
nation in this point was, like the nation itself, but a type, a shadow, 
pf the reality which was to come : the notion of an individual re- 
generation by the Spirit, whereby the individual is enabled to cry 
Abba, Father, the Spirit bearing witness with His spirit that he is 
a child of God, does not appear in any part of the Jewish Scrip- 
tures * "When Christ, therefore, enunciated the great truth that, 
" unless a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God," He alluded to a special prerogative of the 
Christian dispensation, — a special gift derived from His heavenly 
life at the right hand of God. That gift is, the (in the strict sense 
of the word) regenerating influence of the Spirit, which, with crea- 
tive energy, must transform the penitent disciple of the law into a 
member of Christ, before he could "see the kingdom of God," — 
i. e. belong to the Christian dispensation. To the "water" — the 
preparatory repentance and contrition produced by the discipline 
of the law, and symbolized by John's baptism, hence called the 
baptism of water unto repentance — there is superadded, under 
the Christian dispensation, the "spirit," or a participation of 
Christ's own heavenly life, flowing from union with Him, — the 
effect of the indwelling of His Spirit ; in the combination of which 
two elements of the life in Christ — the putting off of the old man 
and the putting on of the new — lies the peculiarity of Christian 
regeneration, as distinguished from the same thing under the law. 

Had the change which the incarnation of Christ produced in 
the spiritual standing of believers been borne in mind, it would 
have been seen that the reply to be given to the question, " Can 
believers before Christ be said to have been regenerate?" turns 
entirely upon the meaning which is attached to the word regene- 
ration. If we use it to signify the great moral change which must 
take place in every son of Adam before he can enjoy fellowship 
with God, then, unquestionably, the ancient believers were re- 
generate: but, if the word be taken in its properly Christian 
acceptation, as denoting incorporation in the glorified Eedeemer, 
they were not, for they could not be, in this sense, regenerate. 
They were morally, but not mystically, regenerate; they were 
believers in the promised Messiah, but they were not, "in Christ," 
in the New Testament sense of that expression. Doctrinal pre- 
possessions have in this, as in other instances, prevented a due 

* By the Rabbins a proselyte was called n*hn nna, " a new creature ;" but the expres- 
sion seems to have denoted merely the outward change which ensued on the profession of 
Judaism. See Olshausen on John, iii. 3. 



THE SACRAMENTS. 165 

recognition of the difference between the spiritual standing of a 
Christian and that of a believer under the law ; but there is nothing 
extraordinary in the supposition, that, as the explicit revelation 
of the doctrines of the Gospel was reserved for Christ and His 
apostles, so a special spiritual blessing is attached to the dispensa- 
tion which the Saviour came to introduce. 

The same remarks apply to those passages in which our Lord 
speaks of the maintenance of the Christian life when once begun. 
As mystical incorporation in Him constitutes the essential idea of 
the new birth, so, by abiding in spiritual union with Christ, the 
Christian lives, and advances to the measure of the stature of the 
fulness of Christ. The union with Christ must be not only begun, 
but maintained and strengthened. Hence such expressions as "He 
that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in 
Him," which, at the least, must mean that the maintenance of the 
new life depends upon the continual communication, not merely 
of Christ's spirit, but of Christ himself (spiritually) to the soul. 
No wonder that an idea so new, and to the Jew especially, com- 
manded, as he was, to abstain from blood, so repulsive, should have 
proved a stumbling-block to those who did not understand that 
the words which Christ spake were spirit and were life. 

That our Lord intended, in either of these remarkable passages, 
a direct reference to the Christian Sacraments to be afterwards in- 
stituted, is, as has been remarked, not probable ; but it is going too 
far in the opposite direction to maintain that they do not contain 
even an indirect allusion to baptism and the Lord's Supper. For 
baptism, worthily received, is, in fact, nothing less than a being 
buried with Christ, and rising with Him to a new life ;* and in the 
other Sacrament the believer enjoys the communion of the body 
and of the blood of Christ.f To the extent in which the Sacra- 
ments are symbolical, and effective, of union with Christ, no lan- 
guage could more accurately express the idea to be connected with 
each, respectively, than that used by our Lord, as recorded by 
St. John. 

Thus far, no difference of opinion — at least no essential one — 
will, it is probable, be found to exist among those who assign its 
full weight to the specific language of the New Testament ; but it 
is far otherwise when we come to the question (an entirely distinct 
one), what place do the sacraments hold in the process of uniting 
men to Christ ? Here it is that the divergency of the sacramental 

* Rom. vu4. fl Cor. x. 16. 



166 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 
















system from tlie teaching of Scripture becomes apparent. That 
system, as recently expounded by one of its advocates, rests upon 
two assumptions, neither of which will stand the test of inquiry ; — 
the first is, that Christ is present with men, in His Church, or mys- 
tical body, the latter expression being interpreted to mean the ag- 
gregate of visible Churches in the world ; and, secondly, that the 
Sacraments are the first instruments of union with Christ, and 
with Christ's body * Upon the first point little need here be said, 
as it is only indirectly connected with the question before us ; mean- 
while, it may be observed that, stripped of ambiguous language, 
the idea is precisely that which Eomanists intend to express, when 
they affirm that the Church is the perpetual incarnation of Christ 
upon earth. To say that Christ is present with us in and through 
the visible Church is, obviously, to make the Church to individuals 
the vicar and representative of Christ upon earth ; and it is but 
taking one step further in the same direction to make the Church 
Christ himself. Such, in fact, is, in Eomanism, the aspect under 
which the Church presents itself to the faithful. Instead of being 
present in His word and by His spirit, and offering Himself as the 
direct means of access, on the sinner's part, to God, Christ is held 
to have retired from the personal administration of the kingdom 
of God, and to have delegated His powers — royal, priestly, and 
prophetical — to the visible Church (i. e. the clergy), commanding 
all men to regard it as they would have regarded Him had He been 
still amongst them in His human nature. In this one dogma, the 
whole of the Komish system, doctrinal and practical, is virtually 
contained. The visible Church assumes the character of a media- 
tor between man and God; becomes, in itself, a depository of 
grace, a life-giving body, as it is sometimes called ; and, in order 
to gain access to Christ, and through Christ to God, individuals 
must first be joined to the Church by visible, that is, sacramental, 
union. 

The attentive reader of the New Testament will not have failed 
to perceive the errors of scriptural interpretation upon which the 
whole theory is based ; as, for example, that the body of Christ 
means the aggregate of visible Churches in the world, and that the 
Church is so called on account of its connexion with the glorified 
manhood of our Lord. The Church is never called the body of 
Christ, as being His diffused manhood, but as standing in the same 
relation to Him in which the human body stands to the head, a 



* See Wilberforcc, Doctrine of the Incarnation, cc. 11 and 13. 



THE SACRAMENTS. 167 

relation of dependence and vital union. The very passages which 
the sacramentalist quotes in favour of his view, prove that it is not 
a correct one;* for when Christ is said to be "the Head from 
which all the body by joints and bands" has "nourishment minist- 
ered," the idea, obviously, is not that the Church is Christ's man- 
hood upon earth, but that from Him she derives spiritual life 
and strength. Nor, again, is it necessary, if it were here the place, 
to dwell upon the endless embarrassments in which they who adopt 
this view of the Church, and yet stop short of fully developed 
•Romanism, are involved, when required to explain how a number 
of independent Churches, which may or may not be in communion 
with each other, can represent the manhood of Christ, which evi- 
dently involves the idea, not of internal union merely, but of ex- 
ternal unity under a visible head; or to propound tests by which 
we are to discover which visible Churches are, and which are not, 
a portion of Christ's diffused manhood. From these embarrass- 
ments, and a thousand others of a similar kind, the Eomanist is 
saved by his doctrine of the papacy; and, in fact, none but a 
Romanist can plausibly maintain, or carry out to its legitimate 
results, the dogma that the visible Church is the perpetual incarna- 
tion, or manhood, of Christ upon earth. What now particularly 
demands our attention is the second assumption above mentioned, 
— viz. that the Sacraments are the instruments by which the com 
mencement of the Christian's union with Christ, and with Christ's 
body, is effected. This is the radical error above alluded to, upon 
which it was proposed to make some remarks. 

Let it be granted that to be in Christ and to be in the body of 
Christ are things inseparable ; the question still remains, what is 
the external instrument of our first union with either ? Scripture, 
with one accord, declares that not to the sacraments, but to the 
Word of God, that office belongs, — the office of initiating the 
Christian's union with Christ. For the living faith which is re- 
quired for the worthy reception of the sacraments, and without 
which they work no saving effect, comes by hearing, and hearing 
by the Word of God. The substance of the Apostolic teaching 
upon this point is, that that part of regeneration which is moral 
— that is, which consists in repentance and faith — must precede 
that which is mystical ; or, rather, that it is, under the Gospel, a 
constituent element of mystical incorporation in Christ. The very 
place which Christianity holds in the progressive revelation of 

* See Wilberforce, Ac, p. 314. 



168 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



God is illustrative of this truth; for, historically, the ancient 
people of God were made to pass under the discipline of the law, 
convincing them of sin, and awakening in them a longing for 
redemption, before the full blessing of a union with Christ was 
proposed to their acceptance. The regenerating spirit was to 
brood, not upon the torpid surface of heathenism, but upon a 
people prepared for the Lord. So it was as regards individuals in 
every instance of conversion recorded in Scripture. The Law 
and the promise, as of old, were necessary to prepare the heart 
for the reception of Christ : the union with Christ which is effected 
by faith invariably preceded that which is effected by the 
sacraments. They who on the day of Pentecost " gladly received 
the word" of Peter, promising them, on repentance, remission of 
sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost, — that is, who repented and 
believed — "were baptised." This was the established order 
according to which " the Lord added to the Church such as should 
be saved." * They were added thereto, not that they might be, 
but because they had been previously, led to repent and believe ; 
visible incorporation in the Church being the last, not the first, 
step in the order of salvation : they were aootynwoi, or in a state 
of salvation, previously to their being added to the Church, be- 
cause repentance and faith, or a change of heart, is the essential 
element of salvation, the only one which the pious Jew possessed 
before Christ came. The passage, indeed, teaches us that those 
whom the Lord designs to save, He will, ordinarily, add visibly to 
His Church : but not that salvation is the consequence of such 
union. To the question of the eunuch, " What doth hinder me to 
be baptized?" the reply was, "If thou belie vest with all thine 
heart thou mayest." But it is unnecessary to multiply particular 
instances in proof of a conclusion which is at once and directly 
established by the tenor of the Apostles' preaching. Had the 
order of salvation been in their view what the sacramentalist 
would have it to be, they would, in exhorting men to save them- 
selves from the wrath to come, have directed them, in the first 
instance, and before anything else, to the Church, as the divinely 
appointed institution through sacramental union with which they 
were to be brought within the influence of Christ's saving power. 
But the course which they followed was altogether different: 
Christ Himself — the risen and exalted Saviour, and not the 
Church of Christ — was the object which they placed in the fore- 



* Acts, ii. 47. 



THE SACRAMENTS. 169 

ground of their ministry, and to which the inquirer was, without 
the intervention of anything else, directed. To the question, 
"Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" the apostolic reply was 
not, " Join thyself to the Church, through which thou shalt attain 
to Christ, and through Christ to God," but " Believe upon the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." * Whatever else 
might be necessary to perfect the Christian's union with Christ, 
the first step towards salvation was ever, according to the apos- 
tolic teaching, a direct application, upon the sinner's part, not to 
Christ's diffused manhood, the visible Church, but to Christ Him- 
self at the right hand of God. To sum up: — no passage can be 
cited from the New Testament, in which the expression "in 
Christ " may not be shown necessarily to presuppose repentance 
and faith, or a change of heart ; which change is supposed to have 
been wrought through the instrumentality of the Word, pre- 
viously to visible union with the Church. Even a branch which 
now appears to be dead, must once have had life; otherwise it 
could never have been a branch : a piece of withered wood fast- 
ened by external ligatures to a living trunk is not, and never has 
been, a branch of that tree.f "To as many as received Him, to 
them gave He power" (e^ovaia, the right, or privilege), " to become 
sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." J 

But here possibly the objection will be made, that if to the 
Word and its correlative — Faith — we assign the first place in the 
process of uniting men to Christ, we cannot deny the privilege of 
union with Christ to the pious Jew, for He too had repentance, 
and exercised faith in the divine promise. We reply that, under 
the Christian dispensation, the ordinance of the ministry of the 

* Acts, xvi. 30, 31. 

f The passage alluded to (John, xv. 2.) is sometimes cited, as proving that the expression 
" in Christ" may denote a mere external relation towards Him; such, for example, as belongs 
to all the members of a visible Church, whatever they may be in the sight of God: but it ap- 
pears to warrant no such conclusion. There is no ground, in the immediate context, or in 
the chapter, for the supposition that the fruitless branch means a mere nominal professor, 
who has never been in living union with Christ. How could such a person be termed a 
branch at all ? Our Loid speaks of both branches — the fruitful and the fruitless — as being, 
or having been, in Himself; and, for aught that appears to the contrary, in the same sense: 
and indeed it is obvious that a fruitless, or even a dead, branch must once have derived life 
from the vine. The truth which apparently is taught us in the passage is, not that tliere are 
two ways of being in Christ, but that it is possible to have vital union with Him, and yet 
not to abide in that state, to fall from it, and finally to be cut off from Christ : in other 
words, that true faith is not always indefectible. In this point of view, the passage may 
eeem to favour Augustine's distinction between the regenerate and the elect, or between 
those who have, and those who have not, the gift of perseverance. 

t John, I 12. 









170 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



Word possesses a sacramental character, which did not belong to 
it under the old ; an important fact, which is constantly overlooked 
or kept out of view by the maintainers of the sacramental system. 
It has been already remarked that, in strictness of language, no 
such ordinance as the ministry of the Word existed under the 
Law. How could it indeed have existed when there was no com- 
pleted redemption to announce ? But we have farther to observe 
that, under the Christian dispensation, this ordinance not only is 
a chief means of grace, but possesses a real sacramental character, 
an inward grace being connected with the outward vehicle, and 
the effect of it being both to initiate and maintain the believer's 
union with Christ. This rests upon most certain testimony of 
Holy Scripture. Is Baptism spoken of as a means of our incor- 
poration in Christ, or regeneration ? So is the Word, and even 
more explicitly. "Of his own will begat he us with the word of 
truth;" " Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incor- 
ruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever."* 
Besides direct passages of this kind, there are others which indi- 
rectly express the same truth; as, for example, when St. Paul 
says, "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus ;"f 
for the Word is the external instrument by which faith is pro- 
duced in the heart. Is the Sacrament of Christ's body and blood 
spoken of as a means of strengthening the new life in Christ ? So 
is the Word : "As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the 
Word, that ye may grow thereby." $ The ministry of apostles, 
prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, by which the saints 
are to be perfected, and the body of Christ edified, is, as all the 
names import, a ministry of the Word.§ Hence is to be explained 
the remarkable circumstance, which no doubt has been observed 
by the reader, that, in speaking of the Word of Christ, the inspired 
writers often pass on to Christ Himself, and employ the two terms 
interchangeably. St. Paul calls the Corinthians "an epistle of 
Christ ministered" by him ; || and in another epistle, if the writer 
begins a passage with describing the Word of God as " quick and 
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword," he, as he pro- 
ceeds, appears to identify it with Christ Himself, affirming that it 
" is a discoverer of the thoughts and intents of the heart ;" and 
that " all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with 
whom we have to do." T The interchange of terms is remarkable, 

* .las. i. 18. : 1 Pet. i. 23. t Gal. iii. 26. 

| 1 Pet. ii. 2. I Ephes. iv. 11, 12. 

D 2 Cor. iii. 3. \ Heb. iv. 12, 13. 



THE SACRAMENTS. 171 

but easily explained, when we recollect the sacramental character 
of the ministration of the word : for in truth, wherever Christ is 
preached, Christ Himself is ministered to the souls of the faithful, 
as really as when He imparts Himself in Baptism, or in the 
Supper of the Lord. 

And as the "Word is a sacramental means of grace, preparing 
the way for the Sacraments properly so called, so the faith which 
comes by hearing is no natural exercise of the understanding, but 
a gift of the Holy Ghost working with the Word. As the sacra- 
mentalist deposes the Word from its proper place in the economy 
of grace, so he regards every mode of access to God, save that 
which is by the Sacraments, as belonging to the province of mere 
natural reason, and subversive of the scheme of mediatorship, 
which is rightly described as the leading idea of the Gospel. There 
cannot be a more erroneous supposition, or a more striking proof 
of the apparent inability of the advocates of this system, any more 
than Eomanists, to understand the Protestant and Scriptural idea 
of justifying faith. If the faith which comes by hearing, and 
which, according to the order of things declared in Scripture, 
initiates the believer's union with Christ, were a mere thinking 
upon Christ, as it has been called, or a mere belief of the doctrines 
of Christianity, it might plausibly be described as a product of 
unassisted reason, a natural mode of intercourse between the spirit 
of man and the Divine Spirit. But the faith which is the result 
of the Holy Spirit's working with the Word is not a mere thought, 
a mere belief, of this kind : it is an internal apprehension of Christ, 
a trust in Him as the only Saviour, and, as such, is nothing less 
than a gift of God, a supernatural mode of access to Him. For it 
is founded upon conviction of sin ; and the preliminary work of 
the Holy Spirit upon the heart of man is, according to our Lord's 
own statement, conviction of sin .* The faith, therefore, of the 
eunuch, or of Lydia, which was kindled in their hearts by the 
preaching of Philip and St. Paul, and which they possessed before 
baptism, was no natural mean of connexion with God : it was the 
inward grace sacramentally attached to the Word, and, as such, 
was just as much a special grace of the Holy Spirit as that which 
they subsequently received in baptism and in the Lord's Supper. 
In fact, St. Paul affirms, that to produce saving faith in the heart 
of man requires as mighty an exercise of the divine power as that 
which took place when Christ rose from the dead.f Nor did their 

* John, xvi. 9. t Ephes. i. 19, 20. 









172 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 






faith fix itself at once* upon God, — the infinite Spirit, — dispensing 
with Christ the mediator, but upon Christ Himself, and through 
Christ upon God; and in this, their spiritual apprehension of 
Christ, antecedently to their reception of the Sacraments, they 
were brought into union with Him, initially, if not perfectly. In- 
deed, even in the reception of the Sacraments, does not that faith, 
the existence of which they presuppose, and without which they 
are lifeless ordinances, ascend directly to Christ mediating in 
heaven between man and God? Or are we to regard the Sacra- 
ments as Christ himself present amongst us ? Such really appears 
to be the ultimate and legitimate conclusion to which the sacra- 
mental system leads. 

But, not to dwell any longer upon the numerous errors and fal- 
lacies which pervade the whole theory, it is clear, from what has 
been said, that, if the recorded cases of Scripture are to decide the 
point, the first accession of spiritual life to the soul does not come 
from visible union with the Church. If a penitent believer cannot, 
as such merely, be pronounced to be in full union with Christ, he 
has unquestionably received life from above, and that through the 
external means of the Word ; nor can the Church introduce him, 
in the first instance, who has already come, to Christ : for he that 
believes upon Christ has come to Christ. In every recorded in- 
stance, he who worthily came to baptism, had previously come to 
Christ, and was baptized on the supposition of his having pre- 
viously so come : so that, although he who is in Christ must also 
be in Christ's body, the order of salvation, as laid down in Scrip - 
turs, is that we attain union with the body through direct union 
with the Head, not vice versa. The case is the same here as in the 
connexion between faith and works : the two are inseparable, yet 
it is not the same thing to say that faith springs from works, as to 
say that works spring from faith. So, in the present instance ; — 
it is by no means an indifferent thing whether we say that men 
attain to union with Christ through union with the Church, or at- 
tain to union with the Church through union with Christ. If by 
the Church be meant the visible community of professing Chris- 
tians, the difference of statement just mentioned involves, as Schlei- 
ermacher remarks,* nothing less than the whole of the contro- 
versy on this subject between Romanists and Protestants. For 
union with the Church in its visible aspect takes place by means 
of the Sacraments ; if, therefore, this be the appointed way of 



* Der Christliche Glaube, Vierte Ausgabe, p. 132. 






THE SACRAMENTS. 173 

access to Christ, and so to God, it is obvious that Christianity be- 
comes, as Eome would have it to be, a religion of Sacraments; 
and Christ, instead of being held forth as the immediate object of 
faith, — the mediator through whom we directly draw nigh to Cod, 
— becomes hidden behind the veil of his own ordinances, the 
Church taking His place as "the way, the truth, and the life." 
Thus, too, faith is made to derive its value and efficacy, not from 
the object upon which it fixes, but from the position of him who 
exercises it, according as he is within, or without, the pale of the 
visible Church ; the faith which precedes Baptism having no cove- 
nanted virtue with Cod :* an error akin to that of Augustin, who 
strenuously maintains that what seems to be Christian love in 
those who are not in communion with the visible Church is not 
so in reality, for that true charity cannot exist save within the one 
sacred inclosure.f So far is this view from being correct, that the 
very reverse is that which we gather from Scripture ; according to 
which, instead of the Sacraments giving power and efficacy to faith, 
it is faith which makes the Sacraments efficacious, and imparts a 
Christian character to the whole of the religious life. 

We can hardly regard it as accidental that the Word, not the 
Sacraments, should be the external means of initiating the Chris- 
tian's union with Christ. May we not, in fact, conclude, that this 
order of things was purposely established, in order to obviate the 
possibility of our investing the visible Church with a sacramental 
character, as if it was in itself a depository of grace, and possessed 
the privilege of spiritually quickening those admitted by sacra- 
mental ordinances to its pale? For thus, the first accession of 
spiritual life is altogether disconnected from incorporation in the 
visible Church, that faith, which the Spirit, working by means of 
the Word, produces, obviously not, of itself, incorporating the be- 
liever in any visible Christian society. An appointment which is 
in perfect harmony with the teaching of Scripture concerning the 
absence of any external law controlling the quickening influences 
of the Spirit. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou canst 
not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is every one 
that is born of the Spirit ;"J "Of his own will begat he us;"§ 

* " The profit of all other means of grace depends on that right of access to God which 
Christ the mediator has dispensed. But the purpose of sacraments is to bind us to Him on 

whom this right of access is dependent So that sacraments differ from all other 

means of grace, in that, whereas other things result from union with Christ, they, on the 
contrary, conduct to it." — Wilberforce, Doctrine of the Incarnation, &c. p. 411. 

t De Bap. cont. Don. 1. 3. s. 21. See also 1. 1. s. 11. 

t John, iii. 8. 2 Jas. i. 14. 


















174 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



" Which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
of the will of man, but of God:"* — how difficult is it to assign to 
these, and the numerous other passages of like import, their full 
meaning, if it be so, that the moment of incorporation in the visi- 
ble Church is also necessarily the moment of the first communica- 
tion of spiritual life to the soul. For, manifestly, nothing is more 
cognizable by man, nothing more definitely fixed in point of time, 
than the act of such incorporation. On the other hand, all becomes 
intelligible, if we are to regard the Word of God as the first instru- 
ment whereby souls are brought to Christ ; for no one can tell in 
what particular cases, or at what particular times, the Word will 
become effectual, through grace, to the spiritual quickening of 
those to whom it is preached. 

And yet, in denying to the Church the power to communicate 
spiritual life, as from herself, we by no means do away with the 
intervention of the Church in the work of bringing souls to. God. 
For if it is the Word which is the instrument of that preliminary 
operation of grace which prepares the way for baptism, yet to the 
Church the custody and preaching of the Word are committed : 
her office it is to perpetuate the Apostles' testimony concerning 
Christ. Hence the manner in which the question is put by a mo- 
dern defender of the sacramental system is captious, as well as am- 
biguous. " Is the Church a means to an end, or is it a separable 
consequence of that end which may be otherwise effected ? Are 
we, by means of the Church, made partakers of Christ ; or, being 
otherwise made partakers of Christ, are we, as it may be or not, 
made partakers of baptism ?"f We reply that it is always by 
means of the Church that men are made partakers of Christ ; not, 
however, through union with herself, but by her holding forth her 
Lord to their acceptance. The Church preaches Christ, and the 
Word, received in faith, initiates the believer's union with Christ : 
the Church, too, administers the Sacraments, and the worthy recep- 
tion of them seals and perfects the believer's union with Christ. 
But, in both cases, the Church's office is ministerial only : to her 
the administration of the means of grace is committed, but she has 
no power to make them effectual to salvation ; for this prerogative 
belongs to Him only who both has life in Himself, and has power 
to communicate of His life to those who believe upon Him. Again, 
it is not left to the discretion of the believer whether or not he 
shall receive baptism ; for it is Christ's command that he be bap- 



John, i. 13. 



t Manning, Unity, Ac. p. 281. 



THE SACRAMENTS. 175 

tized ; and yet baptism is not, if the cases recorded in Scripture 
are to rule the point, the first instrument whereby men are made 
partakers of Christ. 

Into the exceptional case of Infants, born within the pale of 
the Church, it does not seem necessary to enter. Independently 
of the scantiness of the materials which either Scripture or Church 
History furnishes for our deciding positively on the origin or 
effects of Infant baptism, it is enough to observe that this case is 
an exceptional one, and that in our dogmatical conclusions we 
must be guided by the cases actually recorded in Holy Scriptures. 
Besides, it must be remembered that nothing less will satisfy the 
logical requirements of the Sacramental theory than that the first 
accession of spiritual life should in all cases, that of adults as well 
as infants, be conveyed through the Sacrament ; that this should 
be the law of the Gospel ; and therefore to refute that theory it is 
only necessary that we be able, as we are, 'to show that in the 
instances of baptism recorded in Scripture, this was not the order 
of things. Under no circumstances, then, can it claim to be con- 
sidered the universal law of Christianity that baptism is the first 
instrument of living union with Christ. 






176 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



***** 

It only remains, on this head, to observe that, as the Eomish 
conception of the Church springs, by necessary consequence, from 
the two dogmas, — that sacramental union with the Church is the 
first mean of imparting spiritual life to the soul, and that the 
sacraments work ex opere operato — so the Protestant is necessarily 
led to an opposite view, from his insisting upon the order of salva- 
tion as laid down in Scripture, and dating the commencement of 
the life in Christ, in the full sense of the expression, from the 
regeneration effected by the Word, the effect of which is lively 
faith in Christ. Holding that, according to the normal, recorded 
instances, sacramental union with Christ, and with Christ's 
Church, follows, instead of preceding, that living faith which 
itself is a divine gift, he cannot otherwise define the Church than 
as a community of true believers : he cannot, at least, rest satis- 
fied with a definition which makes sanctifying faith a separable 
accident of true Church membership. The great truth which he 
thinks he sees everywhere taught in Scripture, and verified in 
Christian experience— viz. that all grace flows from direct and 
immediate union with Christ the Head, the primary instrument of 
that union being, not an act of the Church, but the faith that 
comes by hearing, — makes it impossible for him to adopt so 
external a conception of the Church as that which pervades the 
Eomish theory. With a visible Church, indeed, men may be in 
mere external conjunction, but with Christ no such union is pos- 
sible ; a union, that is, which does not imply sanctification by the 
Spirit of Christ. If such a thing could once exist, as in the case 
of Judas Iscariot, it cannot do so now that Christ has left the 
world, and ascended on high in His glorified body : a mere carnal 
fellowship with the Saviour is no longer possible. " Though we 
have known Christ after the flesh," is the Apostle's statement, 
"yet now henceforth know we Him" (after this manner) "no, 
more;" and the conclusion immediately drawn is, "that if any 
man be in Christ, he is a new creature," or is spiritually quickened 
from above.* Thus the Protestant, holding that union with Christ 
by faith precedes, in the regular order of things, union with the 
Church, necessarily contemplates the latter as a community of 



2 Cor. v. 16, 17. 



** 



THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH. 177 

persons, not who ought to be, but who are, led by the Spirit of 
Christ ; since to be in Christ, in any proper sense of the words, 
involves participation in His quickening grace. 

Nor can the Church ever assume, in the eyes of the Protestant, 
the position which the Eomish and the Sacramental theory assigns 
to it, — viz. that of an intervening institution, by visible union 
with which access is gained to Christ, and so ultimately to God. 
For if, as we have seen, spiritual quickening, in the regular course 
of things, precedes such visible union ; and he who has been 
spiritually quickened must have been brought, inchoatively at 
least, into union with Christ ; it is obvious that visible incorpora- 
tion in the Church cannot confer that first gift of life which is 
already possessed ; cannot first introduce Him to Christ who has 
already, by faith, come to the Saviour. The Church thus falls 
back into its proper place, and its proper function, which is, to 
administer the means, but not to be either the depository or the 
giver, of grace.* 



Section III. 

THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH IX ITS EARLIER STAGES. 

That Christ intended His followers to be collected into visible 
societies, may be inferred partly from His appointment of the 
Sacraments, and partly from the power, which He delegated to 
the Church or Congregation, of binding or loosing ; whether by 
that expression we understand the making of by-laws and regula- 
tions, or the exercise of discipline : for it is obvious that functions 
like these belong, not to a casual assemblage of persons, but to a 
regularly constituted society, with organs or official representa- 
tives. Upon this point no difference of opinion exists between 
the two great parties which divide Christianity, any more than 
upon the divine institution of the Sacraments. Moreover, it is 
hard to conceive that no intimation would be given respecting the 
particular form of polity which Christian societies were to assume : 

• On this point, see some good remarks in Dr. Hawkins' Sermons on the Church, p. 51. 

12 















178 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



it is not antecedently probable that so important a matter would 
be left absolutely to the discretion of Christians, or that Christ 
•would send his Apostles forth to found Christian societies through- 
out the world without affording them sufficient guidance as to the 



manner in which such societies were to be organised. However 
true it may be that the special purpose of Christ's mission was, 
not to establish the Church, but to become the object of her faith, 
yet, just as He made provision that when the Church should 
actually come into existence it should not be without the visible 
symbols of Christian profession, and a governing body to preside 
over it, so it is reasonable to suppose that, in some way or other, 

{mediately or immediately, by the previous dispensations of His 
providence as the Eternal Word, or by positive enactments, He 
would make it clear according to what outward form of polity 
Christian Societies are to be constituted. To the consideration of 
this point we now proceed. 

The decisions of the Council of Trent upon this subject are such 
as might be expected from the general view which Komanism takes 
of the Church. As the Sacraments are transformed into legal ordi- 
nances, so the polity of the Church assumes the same general cha- 
racter. Taking that polity in the form which it is found to have 
assumed in the third or fourth centuries, the Council boldly traces 
it up, in all its constituent parts, — bishops, priests, deacons, sub- 
deacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers, and ostiarii, — to the very 
beginning of Christianity ; while to certain portions of it — as the 
three chief grades of the ministry, and the primacy of the Bishop 
of Kome — a divine origin is ascribed.* 

Amongst ourselves, the advocates of the Church system, hesita- 
ting as they still do to ascribe a divine authority to its proper his- 
torical basis, — viz. extra-scriptural tradition, — are somewhat em- 
barrassed in the management of the proof of their theory from 
Scripture alone. Equally with the Council of Trent, they affirm 
of the Cyprianic or episcopal form of polity, that it is of divine in- 
stitution, and a law made permanently binding upon the Church ; 
and that this form is as indissolubly connected with the inner life 
of the Church as, in our present state of being, the body is with 
the soul.f When, however, the scriptural proof for this doctrine 

* "Ab ipso ecclesiae initio sequentium ordinum nomina, atque uniuscuj usque propria min- 
isteria, subdiaconi scilicet, acolyti, exorcistae, lectoris,et ostiarii, inusu fuisso cognoscuntur." 
Bess. 23. c. 2, "Si quis dixerit in ecclesia catbolica non esse hierarchicam divina ordinationt 
lnstitutam, quae constat ex episcopis, presby teris, et ministris : anathema git" Id. Con. 6. 

+ Manning, Unity of the Church, p. 281. 



THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH. 179 

comes to be adduced, it is found to be extremely meagre. That 
the apostles appointed deacons and presbyters, is certain ; that the 
episcopate is of apostolic origin, is in the highest degree probable: 
but is every appointment which the Apostles can be proved to 
have made to be deemed, at once, of divine authority, and abso- 
lutely immutable? This obvious, but important, question lies at 
the very threshold of the controversy ; yet it is commonly passed 
over in silence by the parties alluded to, who, when they have 
offered satisfactory evidence that the episcopal polity is, in the 
main, of apostolic origin, seem to conceive that nothing more is 
necessary to prove it to be a divine ordinance. But of this more 
hereafter. The question now before us is, did Christ himself — the 
Lawgiver, as He is called, of the New Covenant — deliver this 
form of ecclesiastical polity as that by which His church was to 
be distinguished from other religious societies ? Difficult of proof 
as this may appear, it is in the last resort affirmed ; and the way 
in which it is made out is as follows: Christ ordained the twelve 
(or eleven) Apostles to be governors and teachers of His Church ; 
in their Apostolic commission were comprised three distinct sub- 
ordinate ones, — the commissions of bishop, presbyter, and deacon ; 
so that, in fact, though these offices are not found to have been 
formally instituted by Christ Himself; or even to have been 
formally in being, until the Church has existed for some time in 
the world, yet they were present, implicitly, from the first; each 
of the Apostles having in himself the polity of the Church, in all 
its plenitude, and the apostolic college by degrees shedding the 
three orders, hitherto enveloped in their own persons, as need 
required : first the Diaconate, then the Presbyterate, and lastly the 
Episcopate. 

Several difficulties here present themselves to the mind. In 
what passage of Scripture is Christ recorded to have delivered to 
the Apostles three distinct commissions, with different powers 
attached to each ? It will hardly be contended that the sending 
forth of the twelve, recorded in Matthew xii., was a formal com- 
mission to exercise the office of a presbyter ; and even if it is to 
be so regarded, the divine institution of the diaconate remains 
without proof, no trace whatever of its appointment being found 
in our Lord's communications with His Apostles. Other commis- 
sions, besides the apostolic one itself, are nowhere mentioned as 
having been conferred by Christ upon the Apostles. That com- 
mission indeed was ample enough: the Apostles were to go forth 
as witnesses of Christ's resurrection, and inspired ministers of the 















180 



CHURCH OF CHRI ST. 



Spirit ; they had authority to remit and retain sins, and a special 
gift of the Holy Ghost to enable them to discharge that solemn 
function ; they were empowered to found Christian societies 
throughout the world, making believers members of such societies 
by baptism ; and a commission to found a society necessarily im- 
plies authority to organise it, to appoint its officers, and to deliver 
the regulations by which it is to be governed. All this belonged 
to the apostolic office, which therefore comprised in itself powers 
much more extensive than those which were afterwards distributed 
between bishops, priests, and deacons. But we search in vain for 
the formal union of the three orders in the persons of the Apostles. 
And, be it observed, the theory requires such a formal devolution 
of the orders ; for no one can transmit to another an office with 
which he has not been himself formally invested : he may create 
for the first time a new office, or he may empower others to do 
certain acts, — as, for instance, to preach, or to ordain, — which he 
has heretofore reserved to himself; but to make over an office to 
another requires that the person making it over have been him- 
self, by competent authority, formally invested with it, and em- 
powered by the same authority to transmit it. If we are to believe 
that the Apostles evolved out of themselves, or out of their own 
commission, the three offices in question, proof must be given of 
their having themselves been formally invested with the offices. 
But of this no sufficient proof is offered. That the twelve were 
appointed to be Apostles of Christ, is declared in Scripture ; but 
when and where they were ordained bishops, priests, and deacons, 
nowhere appears. 

Moreover, this implicit enfolding of the polity of the Church in 
the single apostolic office is at variance with the precedent furnished 
by the elder dispensation, to which, however, we are directed as 
the pattern of the Christian episcopate: the high priest, priest, and 
Levites corresponding, it is said, with the bishops, priests, and dea- 
cons. Neither in Moses, the law-giver of the old covenant, nor in 
Aaron, the first high priest, was the Mosaic polity embodied, or its 
offices concentrated, to be shed off in succession, as need should 
seem to require : the whole of that polity was delivered by God to 
Moses in the form in which it was to remain, the subordinate offices 
being as distinctly defined, and appropriated to certain persons, as 
the high priesthood itself was. It was not left to Moses, or to 
Aaron, to institute, when they should think fit, first the office of 
the inferior priesthood, and then that of the Levites : the draught 
of the ecclesiastical constitution proceeded in every part alike, 



THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH. 181 

directly from God, and the office of the Levites, and that of the 
high priest, stood on the same footing of divine institution. This 
discrepancy between the two cases would, no doubt, be of little 
argumentative value, were there sufficient evidence that Christ did 
really unite in the Apostles the threefold ministry of the Church, 
with directions to separate from themselves each in turn as it was 
called for : in the absence of such evidence, however, it adds to 
the inherent improbability under which the supposition labours. 

But, not to dwell longer upon a theory which is more fanciful 
than solid, we may observe that not only is there no scriptural 
proof of the concentration of the three offices in the apostolate, 
but there was no need for any such formal delivery by Christ of a 
scheme of Church government : the theory is superfluous, as well 
as unsupported. It betrays, in fact, a misapprehension of the true 
historical basis upon which the polity of the Church was, under 
apostolic sanction, erected ; at least in those earlier stages of it with 
which alone we are now concerned. That basis was the Jewish syna- 
gogue. The connexion between the Church and the Synagogue 
is a point of such importance, that some remarks upon the origin 
and nature of the latter institution will not be here out of place. 

The synagogue was an extra-legal institution. Its origin is to 
be assigned to a comparatively late period of Jewish history ; no 
trace of it being discoverable until after the Babylonish captivity. 
That Moses enjoined the priests and elders of Israel to read the 
law in the hearing of the people every seventh year at the feast of 
tabernacles ; * that it was the office of the priests and Levites to 
declare the meaning of the law to those who, in doubtful cases, 
consulted them;f that the Levites, scattered throughout Judea, 
were the ordinary teachers of the people, where religious teaching 
was in request ; — thus much is either declared, or implied, in the 
books of the Old Testament: but Vitringa has shown, in his 
learned work upon the Synagogue, that the data thus furnished 
are insufficient to warrant the conclusion, that places of public 
worship, other than the temple, existed previously to the seventy 
years' captivity 4 The disordered state of the Jewish common- 
wealth, under the judges, and many of the kings; the frequent 
lapses of the people into idolatry ; the desuetude into which the 
reading of the Scriptures had fallen, — as evinced by the surprise 
of Hilkiah, the high priest, at finding in the temple the book of 

* Deut. xxxi. 10, 11. f Deut. vii. 8, 9. 

J De Synag. Vet. lib. i. p. 2. 



182 CHUKCH OF CHRIST. 












the law, and the consternation of Josiah at hearing its contents, 
from which we may gather the extreme ignorance of the mass of 
the people, — are inconsistent with the supposition that, at that 
time, the custom of assembling to hear the law read and expounded 
prevailed. To a period, therefore, subsequent to the captivity, we 
must assign the first establishment of synagogues, strictly so called. 
And the captivity itself sufficiently accounts for their rise. De- 
prived of the temple services, the pious Jew, "by the waters of 
Babylon," endeavoured to supply their place by such public exer- 
cises of religion as yet remained within his reach. These were, 
necessarily, of a character different from the temple worship, and 
consisted in social prayer and praise, and, when opportunity offered, 
hearing from the mouth of a prophet the Word of God. Thus 
more than once it is mentioned in the prophecies of Ezekiel that 
the spirit of God fell upon the prophet as "the elders of Judah sat 
before him;" doubtless for the purpose of receiving religious in- 
struction at his mouth.* And that this had become a common 
practice, not only with the elders of the captivity, but with the 
people at large, may be gathered from the reproof addressed to 
them by God through the same prophet : — "They come unto thee 
as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and 
they hear thy words, but they will not do them." f Eestored to 
their own country, the Jews continued the custom of these weekly 
assemblies, the homiletic services of which would be the more 
valued when the gift of prophecy was finally withdrawn. Indeed, 
the religious assembly convoked by Nehemiah to celebrate the 
rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, presents an exact counterpart 
of what afterwards became the stated worship of the synagogue. 
The congregation being assembled, Ezra the scribe ascended a pul- 
pit of wood, which had been erected for the purpose, and taking 
the book of the law, read portions thereof in the hearing of the 
people. Inasmuch, however, as many of the latter had lost their 
familiarity with the ancient Hebrew language, certain Levites stood 
beside Ezra, and gave the sense of the passages as they were read. 
The people, finally, when Ezra blessed the Lord, responded with 
their Amen, and, bowing their heads, worshipped. $ The elements 
of the synagogical worship are here all present ; but we do not find 
that any building was set apart for the celebration of the religious 
ceremony. It is to the extra-Palestine Jews, who began to niulti- 

* Ezek. xiv. l.j xx. 1. t Ibid. c. xxxiii. 31. 

X Nehem. viii. 



THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH. 183 

ply after the captivity, and who could not resort to the temple for 
religious purposes, that we are probably to assign the first erection 
of buildings for the celebration of the weekly sabbath assemblies. 
The precedent thus set appears to have been speedily followed by 
the Jews of Palestine : synagogues multiplied throughout Judea ; 
and, in Jerusalem alone, in our Lord's time, there existed, as his- 
torians tell us, 480 of these structures* 

From what has been already said, the nature of the synagogical 
worship may be collected. The institution was an extra-legal one ; 
that is, it had no necessary connexion with the temple, or the 
Levitical worship. !Its_jjervicgs, instead of being sacrificial and 
typical, wsre.homiletic and verbal. A priest, as such, had in the 
synagogue no function to discharge. He was not indeed excluded 
from its offices ; but no preference was shown him, except in one 
point : — he was ordinarily called upon to pronounce the solemn 
benediction which formed part of the religious services. If, how- 
ever, it happened that no priest was at the time present, one of 
the ordinary officers of the synagogue (the max n*>v, or hgatus 
ecclesice) might perform this act.f With respect to the persons 
who might teach and expound, the greatest liberty prevailed. 
While this office properly pertained to the Archisynagogi, or 
rulers of the synagogue, and could not be exercised without their 
permission, it was commonly delegated by them to any properly 
qualified member of the assembly who might intimate his wish to 
discharge it. X Hence it excited no surprise when our Lord, in the 
synagogue of Nazareth, " stood up for to read ;" § the sacred 
volume was delivered to Him as a matter of course, though he 
had no official connexion with that particular synagogue. In like 
manner, when Paul and Barnabas entered the synagogue at Pisidia, 
and took their seats upon the doctors' bench, the rulers of the 
synagogue sent to them, who, in all probability, were perfect 
strangers, a permissive message, — "if they had any word of ex- 
hortation for the people," to "say on." || 

The form of government which prevailed in the synagogue was 
not everywhere the same. In the more populous cities it was 
conducted on the Presbyterian model ; a college or senate of persons, 
skilled in the law, being invested with the chief authority ; while 
in the smaller villages, where there were not learned men in suffi- 
cient number to form such a senate, the synagogue was placed . 

* See Vitringa, de Synag. Vet. libr 1. p. 2.-c. 12. t Vitringa, lib. iii. p. 2. c. 20. 
+ Vitringa, lib. iii. p. 1. c. 7. \ Luke, iv. 16. 

V Acts, xiii, 14, 15. 



Hi 



- 






184 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



under the presidency of a single doctor of the law, who bore 
the title of an, or teacher.* Hence may be reconciled the varying 
statements of Scripture, which sometimes speaks of the "rulers" 
and sometimes of "the ruler" of the synagogue :" f in the one case, 
alluding apparently to a corporate governing body ; in the other, 
to an individual holding the same office. The former, however, 
was the ordinary and regular form of government proper to the 
synagogue; as, indeed, there is only one passage of Scripture 
(Luke, xiii. 14.) which appears to imply that there existed any 
other. The members of the presiding senate were sometimes called 
'' ' AqiiGwayayoi, rulers of the synagogue ; but their proper Jewish 
appellation was Mpi, or elders : in the New Testament, these ap- 
pellations are applied to them indiscriminately. To teach and to 
rule .were the two chief duties of their office ; the term ruling com- 
prising the regulation of all matters connected with the public 
worship of the synagogue, the care of the poor, and the adminis- 
tration of discipline. The mode of exercising discipline was either 
by excommunication or by scourging: to both which practices 
the writers of the New Testament make frequent allusions. 

Besides its governing college of elders, the synagogue had its 
inferior officers, known by the name of Chazzan and Scheliach 
Tsibbor. X In the ancient synagogue, the office of the latter seems 
to have been one of dignity ; for he acted as the spokesman or 
representative of the congregation in reciting the appointed forms 
of prayer. The functionary first named corresponded with the 
apparitors of modern churches, and his duties were pretty much 
what theirs are. Of this order of officers was the 'T^ok^c, 
or minister, to whom our Lord, after He had closed the book from 
which He had been reading, returned it to be deposited in its 
place. § 

Such is a brief sketch of the origin and constitution of the 
Jewish synagogue ; an institution which, under the providence of 
God, had, in the lapse of ages, gradually established itself wherever 
there were Jews, and the design of which evidently was, that it 
should form the groundwork of the polity of the Christian church, 
and present an existing historical fact with which Christianity 
might connect itself. The worship of the synagogue formed the 
point of transition between the symbolical services of the temple 
and the verbal services of the new economy ; and, by habituating 

* Vitringa, lib. ii. c. 9. + Acts, xiii. 14. ; Luke, xiii. 14. 

X Vitringa, lib. iii. p. 2, c. 1. ? Luke, iv. 20. 



THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH. 185 

the Jewish mind to the offerings of prayer and praise instead of 
the bloody sacrifices of the law, and to the ministry of the Word 
instead of the ministry of types, it smoothed the way for the Gos- 
pel dispensation. In onr Lord's time, the Levitical worship was 
of course still maintained, and the temple frequented; but it is 
evident, from the inspired record, that that worship had become, 
to some extent, supplanted in public estimation, by the younger 
institution, and that the active, living, force of Jewish religionism 
centered in the synagogue. A change, which, like the other modi- 
fications of sentiment traceable in the history of the chosen 
people, must be regarded as having been brought about with 
a special reference to the approaching advent of Christ. 

That the Church did really derive its polity from the synagogue 
is a fact upon the proof of which, in the present state of theological 
learning, it is needless to expend many words. As far as the 
present argument is concerned, it is a matter of indifference 
whether we suppose the temple or the synagogue to have been 
the model after which Christian societies were organised ; for in 
either case, it was an already existing form of polity upon which 
Christianity engrafted itself, and adapted to its own uses. The 
Romish theologians, as might be expected, adopt the former hypo- 
thesis, which is also maintained by some of our own divines, — 
e. g. Usher ;* but their arguments have been met, and the question 
conclusively settled, by Vitringa, in his learned work De Synagoga 
vetere.f Independently of the overwhelming amount of direct 
evidence which proves that the synagogue, not the temple, consti- 
tuted the pattern which the Apostles proposed to themselves, the 
simple facts that the founders of the first Christian societies were 
Jews, and that the first Christian society came into existence in 
Jerusalem, seem of themselves decisive of the question. For, as 
long as the temple stood, and especially in the very locality which 
it occupied, it never could have entered the mind of a Jew to 
establish a religious society, the polity of which should be framed 
after that of the Levitical worship: such a proceeding would have 
appeared to him a profane parody on the divine appointments. 
We have seen what care the Jews took in framing the worship of 
the synagogue, to distinguish it from that of the temple, both by 
the titles and by the functions which they assigned to the offio 
of the former institution. The same feeling must be supposed to 

• In his work, De Episcop. et Metrop. Origino. 
t De Synag. Vet Prolegom. cc. 5 <fc 6. 



t 






186 



CHURCH OF CHRlfaT. 


















have actuated the Apostles ; that is, it must be supposed that they 
would shrink from making the polity of the church a transcript 
of that of the temple, unless they had received an express com- 
mand from Christ so to do. But of such command, no proof has 
ever been offered ; so far from it, our Lord Himself contemplated, 
prospectively, His Church as assuming the synagogical form, both 
when He promised that where two or three should be gathered 
together in His name, He would be in the midst, and still more 
distinctly, when He gave authority to every society of His fol- 
lowers to bind and loose, and to excommunicate the disobedient. 

Various additional arguments might be made to converge upon 
this point. Thus the names which Christian ministers bea r in t he 
-^ New Testament — presbyter or episcopus, and deacon — are all 
derived from the synagogue ; while never once are they designated 
by the term 'IeQsvg or Priest, the proper title of those who officiated 
in the temple. The very term itself, synagogue, is, in one passage 
of the New Testament,* applied to a Christian assembly, though 
it is true that afterwards it was purposely avoided, and the word 
txxlrfiia which corresponds to the Hebrew Snp, substituted for it, 
in order to distinguish the church from the synagogue. 
jy St. Paul, in chap. xiv. of the first epistle to the Corinthians, 

*-/ presents us with a graphic picture of the mode in which Christians, 
in the first age of the Church, celebrated public worship. The 
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper constituted the visible symbol of 
their profession, and the pledge of their union with Christ and 
with each other ; but the governing function in the assembly was 
the ministry of the Word, whether it assumed the extraordinary 
forms of " tongues," or a "revelation," or "prophecy," or "the 
interpretation of tongues," or consisted of the stated instructions 
of regular pastors and teachers. Among the various spiritual gifts 
then common in the Church, the chief place was to be assigned to 
prophecy ; for " he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edifica- 
tion, and exhortation, and comfort." Of any typical or sacrificial 
clement, St. Paul makes no mention : the whole service, with the 
exception of the Lord's Supper, was manifestly homiletic or verbal. 
That the gifts mentioned in the chapter were, for the most part, 
extraordinary, and in process of time were to cease, makes no 
difference as regards the argument ; for it is the essential character 
of Christian worship, not the particular vehicle of its expression, 
that is the point now under consideration. 



* Jas. ii. 2. 



THE POLITY OF THE CHUKCH. 187 

Jnjhe sixth chapter of the same Epistle, St. Paul blames the ■* 
Corinthians for not referring their disputes to the decision of the 
church or congregation with which they were connected; and, 
instead thereof, going to law with each other before heathen magis- 
trates. To understand the passage, we have only to bear in mind 
that among the Jews, the judicial consistories, appointed for the 
determination of smaller causes in each locality, were composed 
of the same persons who constituted the senate of the synagogue ; 
it being impossible, as Yitringa has remarked, under the Jewish 
polity, to make a distinction between the Church and the State, 
since the Jewish civil rulers were at the same time the ecclesias- 
tical.* The circumstances under which the first Christians were 
placed in reference to the heathen courts of justice, made it 
desirable that their civil differences should be settled among 
themselves ; and the custom of the Jewish synagogue supplied a 
precedent in point. The chief qualification necessary to the He- 
brew judges being an accurate knowledge of the law, they received 
the generic title of D^n, or wise men, answering to the Greek 
Goyol or aocpiaxai ; f and their office, like all the others connected 
with the synagogue, had no necessary connexion with the priest- 
hood. "Is it so," asks St. Paul, "that there is not a wise man 
among you ? No, not one that shall be able to judge between his 
brethren." £ In this epistle, too, St. Paul both recognizes the right 
of every Christian society to excommunicate obstinate offenders, 
and blames the Corinthians for not having exercised this power in 
the case of the incestuous member of their Church. But, as has 
been remarked, excommunication belonged to the synagogue, not 
to the temple. 

In setting apart the ministers of a Christian Church to their 
offices, £he Ap ostles, we know, practised the rite of imposition of 
hands. Now~this ceremony was not derived from the temple, for 
the priests were consecrated in a different mannei — viz. by being 
anointed with the holy oil, and arrayed in the holy garments. It 
was from the synagogue that the imposition of hands passed into 
the Church. The rite was a common one among the Jews, being 
used by them on a variety of occasions ; but, in our Lord's time, 
it had become more particularly appropriated to the synagogue 
and the academies, the chief doctors of which were in the custom 
of laying hands upon such of their scholars as had given proof 
of their proficiency in learning ; who, after this ceremony, were 

* De Synag. Vet. lib. ii. c. 9. t See Vitringa, lib. ii. c. 10. J 1 Cor. vi. 5. 








































188 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

regarded as invested with public authority to teach * It was 
customary, also, when any of these licensed teachers, from among 
whom the members of the great council at Jerusalem, and of the 
smaller consistories scattered throughout Judasa, were chosen, 
were called to the exercise of ecclesiastical functions, to lay hands 
upon them by way of inauguration to their office. 

The very form under which the Church of Christ was to 
become visible in the world — viz. as an aggregate of visible 
churches, connected by certain common ties, but not under one 
earthly government 7— must have directed the minds of the Apos- 
tles to the synagogue as their model. For the synagogue differed 
from the temple in this very particular — viz. that, while the latter 
was but one, and was confined to one locality, the former admitted 
of indefinite multiplication; and, in fact, synagogues existed in 
almost every part of the Koman Empire. To the Apostles, 
divinely instructed as they were in the universal character of 
Christ's religion, the polity of the synagogue must have presented 
itself as the suitable model after which to organize the Church : 
they knew of no other capable of universal diffusion. 

Not however to dwell longer upon a point upon which hardly 
any real doubt can exist, let us proceed to draw the necessary 
inferences. It is obvious that the question, Did Christ Himself 
deliver a form of polity for His Church? does not admit of an 
answer either directly affirmative, or directly negative. If what 
is meant be, Did Christ deliver to His Apostles a new system of 
Church government as Moses prescribed one for the Jews? the 
answer must be in the negative: of this no trace is found in 
Scripture ; nor, as we have seen, was there any necessity for it. 
But if the meaning of the question is, Did the special providence 
of God so order things that a polity suitable to Christianity should 
exist among the Jews at the time when Christ appeared ? it must 
be answered affirmatively, and upon this very fact it is that the 
Protestant builds his argument. For thus, in the matter of Church 
polity, as in the Sacraments, Christ is found adapting to the 
purposes of His Church a well-known, and existing, institution. 
Christianity is seen content to throw herself, as regards her visible 
existence in the world, into old and familiar forms. Had it been 
our Lord's purpose to establish, in the first instance, a visible sys- 
tem, distinct from the existing one, He would, instead of sanction - 
jng an adaptation of the synagogue to the Church, have delivered 

•On the Jewish D^-p niPDD, or imposition of hands, see Vitringa, De Syn. lib. iii. p. L c. 15. 






THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH. 189 

to His Apostles a new framework of polity, with directions to 
them to plant it, as the first step towards evangelizing the nations, 
wherever opportunity offered. On this supposition, the Apostles 
would have traversed the world, carrying with them the prescribed 
draught of ecclesiastical polity : they would have set it up, wher- 
ever they obtained a footing, at once in all its completeness ; and 
then they would have incorporated men in it, in the mass, with 
the view of ultimately making them Christians : in short, the in- 
stitution would have preceded the persons who were to compose 
it. So indeed the Apostles are made to act. The % infant Church 
of Christ, we are told, appeared, primarily, as " a visible organized 
system," — "a newly developed system, which at that time began 
to take the place of God's previous economies, and to overspread 
Judea and the countries round about." * But no assertion can be 
more incorrect. The newness lay not in the exterior framework, 
but in the unseen presence of the Saviour : what transformed the 
Jewish synagogue into a Christian congregation was, not an out- 
ward change of polity or ritual (with the exception of the two 
Sacraments), but the fact, that where two or three were gathered 
together in Christ's name He was in the midst. The old forms 
were, as far as was possible, retained : it was the spirit within that 
was new. Instead of carrying about with them a new model of 
polity, the Apostles found, not only in Judea, but in every prin- 
cipal city of the empire, providentially at hand the appointed 
pattern after which Christian societies were to be organized ; for 
wherever there were Jews, and there were Jews every where, 
there was a synagogue. 

It needs but a careful perusal of Scripture to perceive how erro- 
neous is the view above alluded to. Far from attracting the atten- 
tion of the Jewish people by the singularity of the visible system 
of the Church, the Apostles and their followers were looked upon 
simply as a new Jewish sect, to be classed with those which had 
sprung up in great numbers in the latter period of the Hebrew 
commonwealth. As such they evidently are regarded in the ad- 
dress of Gamaliel to the chief priests, f The sect of the Nazarenes 
was their distinctive appellation. % These Jewish sects had their 
peculiar opinions and practices ; but they never considered them- 
selves, nor were they considered by their Jewish brethren, as sepa- 
ratists from the institutions of Moses. In this light it was that the 

* Manning, Unity, etc. p. 77. t Acts, v. 34. et seq. 

X Acta, xxiv. 5. 






190 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

first Christian Church presented itself. Just as the services of the 
synagogue did not at all interfere with those of the temple, so we 
find the Apostles still frequenting the latter, and at the regular 
hours appointed for prayer ; even of the whole body of believers 
it is recorded that they continued "with one accord in the tem- 
ple."* Their peculiar association as believers in Christ by no 
means, in their own estimation, or in that of the people, dissolved 
their connexion with the Jewish law. Had it been otherwise, they 
never would have enjoyed, as we are told they did enjoy, "favour 
with all the people." f Perhaps there is no point more deserving 
of attention, as illustrative of the nature of Christianity, than that 
of which we are now speaking, viz. the absence of any attempt on 
the part of the Apostles to assume a hostile or separatist attitude 
in reference to the divinely appointed Jewish ordinances. Accord- 
ing to the testimony of St. James, and the elders of Jerusalem, the 
believing Jews of that place were "all zealous of the law;" and 
they mention the fact without any accompanying mark of disap- 
probation. % St. James's own practice in this respect may be gath- 
ered from his manner of life as described by Eusebius, or rather 
Hegesippus, and from the high estimation in which he was held by 
not only the believing, but the unbelieving Jews.§ Even the 
great Apostle of the Gentiles, who contended so earnestly against 
the false teachers who would have made the observance of the 
ceremonial law in the case of Christians a necessary condition of 
justification, thought it not inconsistent with his professed opinions 
to comply, as a matter of expediency, with the legal ordinances. 
He took upon himself "a vow :" he "hasted, if it were possible for 
him, to be at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost :" he associated 
himself at Jerusalem with certain persons about to purify them- 
selves in the temple as the law prescribed; and this by the 
advice of St. James and the elders. || It was St. Paul's constant 
practice, when he broke new ground in the course of his 
ministry, instead of setting up a new visible system, to betake 
himself, in the first instance, to the synagogue of the place, if it 
possessed one, and, exercising the right which belonged to him as 
a Jewish doctor of expounding the Old Testament Scriptures, to 

* Acts, iii. 1, 2. 46. t Acts, ii. 47. t Acts. xxi. 20. 

\ OXvov xal (riKcpa uvk eiruv^ ovic lp\pvxov tipaytv' \vpov in\ r»V KC<pa\f)v ovtov ovk dvt(5r), 
eXatov ovk dXeiiparo, ical (iakavtitp ovk expno-aro' toviw ^ocm ffijv £«'f ra ayia siauvai' ov6i yap 
cpcovv e<p6pcty dXAa civSovas' koi fidvoi eurijpxcro eif rdv va6v' rfvpiaKcrd re Keipevos ini rots yoi/a<n, 
mi aiTOVjitvoi; imp rov \aov atytaiv.— Euseb. Hist. 1. ii. c. 23. 

|| Acts, xviii. 18.j xx. 16.; xxi. 24. 






THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH. 191 

dispute therein, " persuading the things of the kingdom of God," as 
long as he was permitted to do so * Even the believing Jews he 
was by no means anxious at once to detach from their old connex- 
ion, with the view of forming them into a distinct society. At 
Ephesus at least, it was not until "divers" (of the synagogue) 
"were hardened, and believed- not, but spake evil of that way 
before the multitude," that "he departed from them, and separated 
the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus."t 

In fact, let the case be supposed (it is one that might easily have 
occurred) of a whole synagogue, with its elders and ministers, 
having been, through the preaching of the Apostles, converted to 
the faith of Christ ; and we have at once a Christian church or 
congregation, such as that at Philippi, consisting of " the saints" 
in that place, "with the bishops," or elders, "and deacons." With 
the single exception of the two sacraments, the external aspect of 
the society would remain the same as before ; the officers would bear 
the same names, and their duties would be the same ; the religious 
services would be the same in nature, being, in each case, not 
sacrificial, but homiletic. Wherein, then, would be the essential dif- 
ference between the present and the former state of the society ? It 
is not denied that the sacraments would serve to mark the change ; 
but surely the real point of distinction would be, as has been 
already remarked, that Christ, who before was absent, is now 
present in the assembly of His worshippers. 

If it be important for the determining of the question at issue 
to observe that the general form of polity which Christian societies 
were to assume had been provided long before the Saviour came 
into the world, not less worthy of attention is the fact that that 
organisation was a matter of gradual development, and advanced 
by successive steps. Were the Komish view the true one, the 
Church ought to have exhibited itself from the very beginning, in 
the complete panoply of a graduated hierarchy, with the supreme 
pontiff at its head ; or, at least, with the episcopal polity fully 
developed. It has been observed, that nothing is more incom- 
patible with the nature and object of a legal institution, than that 
its polity should be left to grow up, and enlarge itself, as need 
might require. It is most certain, however, that thus it was that 
the polity of the Chureh grew into form. Setting aside the fanci- 
ful hypothesis of- the three grades of the Christian ministry being 
enveloped in the Apostolate, the Church appears, in the first mo- 

• Acta, xix. 8. t Acta, xix. 9. 









192 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

ment of its existence, without any visible organisation properly 
so called. It was a company of men, "filled with the Holy 
Ghost," associating together for the purposes of common prayer 
and " the breaking of bread," and cleaving to the teaching of the 
Apostles. That the Apostles appear as the teachers and governors 
of the infant society is easily accounted for, without the suppo- 
sition of their embodying in themselves any formal system of 
Church polity. Even previously to the descent of the Spirit, the 
Apostles, as the chosen attendants upon Christ, and witnesses of 
His resurrection, are found assuming the chief place in the body 
of expectant believers : nothing was more natural than that they 
should do so. If to the privileges just mentioned we add the various 
commissions given them by Christ, by which they were invested 
generally with supreme authority in the Church, we have all that 
is necessary to account for the position of presidency which they 
assumed when, by the outpouring of the Spirit, the Church was 
formally constituted. By the miracles which they wrought, and 
especially by the exercise of the power conveyed to them by 
Christ, of pronouncing sins remitted or retained (as in the case 
of Ananias), they proved their divine commission : what more 
natural than that it should be acknowledged ? For a time, then, 
the Church existed without a formal polity, under the presidency 
of its natural leaders, the Apostles, no intermediate grades of 
ministry being as yet visible. In this state it remained until an 
alteration of circumstances gave rise to the first real step in the 
permanent organisation of Christian societies. " When the num- 
ber of the disciples were multiplied," a dispute arose between the 
Grecians and the Hebrews concerning the daily ministration of 
the alms of the Church* Perceiving that the time was come for 
enlarging the simple polity which had hitherto sufficed, the Apos- 
tles acted in this emergency (doubtless under a general guidance 
of the Holy Spirit, but still,) according to the dictates of human 
wisdom : they introduced a subdivision of labour, assigning to a 
separate body of officers a part of those duties which they had 
hitherto discharged themselves. In creating this new order of ' 
ministers, they did not separate from their apostleship a ministerial 
grade which had hitherto been enveloped in it : they found in the 
synagogue an office resembling that which had become necessary 
in the Church, and in the Church they instituted a corresponding 
one. Whether the so-called first seven deacons discharged the 






* Acta vi. 1. 



THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH. 198 

same functions as the officers known by that name in after times, 
or not, is immaterial to the present question : it must at least be 
granted that in them we have, if not the diaconate proper, yet, 
the substratum of it. That the Apostles, in the appointment of 
deacons, designedly followed the synagogical model, it is not 
necessary to maintain: they probably acted without any such 
special reference : but it is not the less certain that the idea of the 
office must have been suggested to them by the analogous one of 
the Jewish institution.* 

To a similar concurrence of natural causes we must refer the 
rise of the presbyterate, the first institution of which, however, is 
not recorded. For several years after the appointment of deacons, 
the Church at Jerusalem seems to have had no other ministers 
than deacons and Apostles. Eeleased from the secular business 
which they had found incompatible with the discharge of their 
higher functions, the Apostles acted both as the. chief governors 
and the teachers of the society ; devoting themselves more par- 
ticularly to the " ministry of the Word and to prayer." f It is 
obvious that this state of things could not last. The growth of 
the mother church at Jerusalem, and the rapid formation of other 
Christian societies, first in Judea, and then beyond its boundaries, 
rendered it more and more difficult for the Apostles to attach 
themselves, in person, to any one society. The remedy obviously 
was to appoint, in each church or congregation, one or more 
officers to superintend its affairs, and act as its permanent teach- 
ers ; who should, so far, supply to it the place of the Apostles. 
And here, as in the former instance, the synagogue supplied, in 
its college of governing elders, the pattern of what was wanting. 
The Apostles, in establishing, as they did, a governing presbytery 
in every church, did not detach from themselves what had never 

• Vitringa (De Synag. Vet. lib. iii. p. 2. c. 5.) argues that the office of Stephen and his 

companions was altogether different from that of the deacons mentioned in St. Paul's 

Epistles j but it should seem on insufficient grounds. — See Neander, Geschichte der 

Pflanzung, Ac, vol. i. p. 46 j and Rothe, Anfange, Ac. p. 166. Vitringa was led to adopt 

this view, from finding that, the seven persons mentioned in Acts vi. discharged higher 

functions than those of the Chazzan of the Synagogue, which appeared to him to render 

the derivation of the Christian diaconate from the synagogue doubtful. But it is the 

characteristic tendency of his valuable work to strain the comparison between the polity 

of the church and that of the synagogue beyond what is allowable or necessary. That the 

synagogue furnished the general groundwork of the polity of the church is most true: 

more than this cannot with truth be affirmed. To suppose that the Apostles slavishly 

followed the synagogical pattern in every particular is consistent neither with recorded 

facts, nor with the spirit of the Christian dispensation. 

t Acta, vi. 4. 

13 






194 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









been, as a formal office, in themselves ; they instituted a new 
office, and yet an old one ; new to the Christian Church, but of 
ancient standing in the synagogue. Thus it was that the polity 
of the Church grew up by degrees, and according to a natural 
law. The Apostles proceeded, in this matter, neither according to 
a divine prescription, nor as if the Church had no proper exist- 
ence until its visible organization was complete, but step by step, 
according as the exigencies of the Christian Society, as a society, 
called for new provisions. As long as the simpler usages sufficed, 
they were permitted to remain : it was only when difficulties 
arose, or the extension of Christianity rendered additional organ- 
ization necessary, that the Apostles interfered to supply the defect. 
The Church was permitted to develope her polity from within 
outwards ; the want was always allowed to be felt before it was 
supplied. No fact is more certain, or more significant, than this. 
For the question immediately arises, Was the Church in existence 
on the day of Pentecost, or was it not ? If it was, as all parties 
admit, then its true being cannot lie in the visible polity with 
which it afterwards became clothed, whether we stop at the Epis- 
copal system, or advance to the apex of the pyramid — the Eoman 
pontiff: for at the period of which we are speaking, even the first 
essays towards establishing that polity had not been made. * If it 
did not exist implicitly in the Apostles (and that it did not has 
been already shown), it was not, for some time after the establish- 
ment of the Church, formally in existence at all ; so that if the 
Eomish theory be correct, the primitive Church at Jerusalem 
resembled the spirit of a man separate from his body ; that is, it 
had no visible existence upon earth. Moreover, if covenanted 
grace be connected with, for example, the episcopal polity, how 
comes it that the Apostles did not at once establish that polity in 
every Christian society ? Was the Pentecostal Church destitute 
of a privilege which the Church in the times of Ignatius enjoyed ? 
Had the members of it no covenanted access to God, and its Sac- 
raments no validity ? It is difficult to suppose that the Apostles 



* That is, by any formal enactment. It is with this limitation that the above observa- 
tions, and those which occur in a subsequent part of this work on the subject of episcopacy, 
must always bo understood. For, in its rudiment, or informal state, the episcopate may be 
eaid to have been coeval, or nearly so, with the Church itself. If the position of the apos- 
tolic college collectively, in reference to the other orders of the Christian ministry, presents 
but a slender analogy to that of the episcopate proper, the place which St. James evidently 
occupied in the Church of Jerusalem appears to have been really that of a bishop or chief 
overseer. But the informal rudiment of an office is one thing; the formal creation of it 
another. 



THE POLITY OF THE CHURCH. 195 

were ill-instructed in the principles of Christianity, or neglectful 
of the trust committed to them ; but one or the other they must have 
been, if, for a length of time, they omitted taking the steps neces- 
sary to give the Church its being. But it is needless to say more. 
The difficulties are innumerable which beset every attempt to 
reconcile the Catholic theory of the Church with the fact of the 
progressive development of its polity. 

" He that looks," we are told, " to find from the beginning of 
the Gospel an entire hierarchy, with its supplements and comple- 
ments of order and office, must have a mind strangely unskilled 
in the analogies of God's works. The notion that the Church was 
perfected in all its organic parts — uno Apostolorum afflatu — by 
the first breath of St. Peter and the Apostles, has no foundation 
in the testimony either of inspired or uninspired history. On the 
contrary, not only the analogy of all God's inanimate and animate 
works, but also of His earlier dispensations, would lead us before- 
hand to look for what, in Holy Scripture, we find." * That the 
visible polity of the Church was not at once perfected is most true ; 
but we must demur to the assertion that, the Church theory being 
supposed to be the true one, to expect things to have been other- 
wise indicates a mind unskilled in the analogies furnished by 
God's earlier dispensations. The Church theory affirms that a 
certain form of polity was delivered by Christ, either directly or 
through his Apostles, which is as essential to the Church as the 
body of a man is to a man ; in other words, is absolutely essential 
to it ; so essential, as that, apart from it, neither is there a cove- 
nanted way of access to God, nor can Christianity exert that reno- 
vating influence upon human nature which it was intended to 
exert. Now the only other instance which God's dispensations 
supply of a religious institution based upon this principle is that 
of the Mosaic economy ; and in that instance we find that God did 
deliver the external framework of the polity " perfected in all its 
organic parts," and in detail, so that nothing was left to be sup- 
plied at a future time. The reason of so material a deviation from 
this precedent, in the case of the Christian Church, it is incumbent 
upon the Cyprianist to explain. 

In the observation/ that "Christianity came into the worldas an 
idea, rather than an institution," f there is important truth, if for 
the word "idea" we substitute the. presence of Christ by His spirit 
in the hearts of believers. Christianity did come into the world 

* Manning, Unity of the Church, p. 119. t Newman's Essay on Development, p. 110. 













196 



■ 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



much more as a spiritual influence than as a visible institution, 
Christianity first appeared in the hundred and twenty, who, with 
the Apostles, were "with one accord in one place;" and what was 
the Church in that first moment of its existence ? Not, primarily, 
an institution; not a papal, or an episcopal, or a presbyterian 
body ; not a visible system, standing out ih strong contrast with 
the existing one; but simply a company of men, "all filled with 
the Holy Ghost." * Of course, it could not always remain in this 
state. If the Church was to have a visible existence in the world, 
in the form of Christian societies, such societies must have laws, 
and representatives, and officers; in one word, must be visibly 
organised. But the whole history of the first Church shows how 
naturally, and, so to speak, spontaneously, the work of organisa- 
tion advanced. The Christian society followed the law of all 
societies which have their essential principle within. When it 
became necessary to put on an outward form, it threw itself out, 
by force of the spirit within, under apostolic guidance, into such a 
polity as was suitable to its nature. The invisible constitution of 
the Church by the spirit preceded the visible manifestations of its 
existence, and the visible development of its polity. Moehler 
treats it as an absurdity to affirm, with Luther, that the visible 
Church owes its existence to the invisible, or, to speak more ac- 
curately, that the inner life of the Church precedes the visible 
exhibition of that life. "According to Luther, the Church is a 
congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly preached ; 
first, therefore, there must be saints, whose origin and appearance 
no one can account for : then they preach." f Luther's position is, 
however, as Nitzsch observes, J nothing but the strict truth. The 
Church of Christ was not properly in existence before the day of 
Pentecost: much less did she, before that era, go forth on her 
mission to evangelize the world. A body of believers indeed had 
been by Christ gathered out of the Jewish people to be the first 
recipients of the Pentecostal effusion ; but before that event, this 
body could not be called distinctively His Church. It is, then, 
nothing but the fact, that the invisible Church, or rather that 
which in the Church is invisible, preceded that which is visible. 
The spiritual power which wrought so wonderful a change in the 
Apostles must first descend from heaven, and give to the Church 
its inner form, — its spiritual characteristic! afterwards the Apos- 
tles preach, and organise. First> there are saints, or men in whom 



* Acts, ii. 4. 



t Symbolik, p. 426. 



X Protestant. Beantwort. dbc, p. 233. 



ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS, ETC, 



19" 



Christ is formed by an invisible operation of His Spirit, whose 
origin, however, is not unknown; then these saints proceed to 
execute their appointed mission. The argument of the opponent 
only recoils upon himself. 






198 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









<T> 



Section IV. 



ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 

It appears, then (to state briefly the conclusion to which the 
foregoing remarks on the Christian dispensation conduct us), that 
both the nature of the divinely appointed ordinances of the Gospel 
and the process by which the polity of the Church became fixed, 
are such as to exclude the supposition of Christianity being, pri- 
marily, a visible institution. Had Christ come as a lawgiver in the 
same sense in which Moses was, He would, if the analogy of the 
earlier dispensation is to be any guide to us, have instituted other 
ordinances than those which He did, and on a different principle. 
In whatever point of view we compare the two systems, the con- 
trast strikes us. The principle of the Mosaic law was to prescribe, 
in the first instance, to the outward act, with the view of ultimately 
forming the inner sentiment. The principle of the Christian dis- 
pensation is, to pre-suppose the existence of the inner sentiment, 
and, upon that supposition, to erect the visible superstructure. 
Under the former, men were placed under an outward rule of dis- 
cipline ; under the latter, the visible aspect of the system is the 
result of the natural, though not unguided, efforts of the inner life 
to clothe itself in its proper organic form. There, the performance 
of the prescribed act — the opus operatum — had a real, independent, 
value: here, the mere act is, in God's sight, valueless; it derives 
its worth from the living faith presumed to be present in those 
who perform it. That these are, severally, the characteristic fea- 
tures of the Mosaic and the Christian systems appears clear from 
the facts connected with the delivery of each. 

Nor is the difference any other than that which we should have 
been led to expect from the contrast drawn by St. Paul between 



ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS, ETC. 199 

the two dispensations. The passage has been before alluded to,* 
but it deserves a more attentive consideration. " Now I say that 
the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, 
though he be Lord of all ; but is under tutors and governors until 
the time appointed of the Father. Even so we, when we were 
children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But 
when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made 
of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under 
the law."f The former dispensation, it has been observed, was 
the childhood of revealed religion, and the whole system was 
framed with a reference to the low capacity, intellectual and moral, 
of the pupil. In this condition, however, it cannot be supposed 
that religion was to remain always. To advert to the analogy 
employed by St. Paul, even before full emancipation from the 
restraints of discipline takes place, the effects of a judicious system 
of education will be perceptible ; and in proportion as the moral 
sense" becomes stronger, and more enlightened, the instructions of 
the teacher will appeal more to reason, and general principles will 
take the place of specific prescriptions ; the growing intelligence 
of the pupil rendering this mode of treatment both necessary and 
possible. At length the process of education being supposed to be 
complete, the pupil is released from the discipline of tutors and 
governors, and emerges, not into a second childhood, but into the 
privileges and responsibilities of manhood. What is the peculiarity 
of his present, as compared with his former, condition ? Not that 
he is now free to abandon the virtuous habits in which he has been 
trained, but that he is expected to do spontaneously what he for- 
merly did from compulsion. The liberty which he enjoys, far 
from being license, consists in his no longer needing an outwardly 
coercive law to retain him in the path of duty, but in his having 
become a law to himself. With him virtuous habits are presumed 
to have become second nature. It is expected that an inward per- 
ception of what is right and expedient, a moral intuition, will dic- 
tate to him what in each emergency, as it arises, is the path of 
duty. In the various circumstances of life which call for prudent 
action, the man, as contrasted with the child, is thrown upon his 
own resources ; and the successful conduct of affairs depends, in 
his case, not upon following a code of minute prescriptions, for 
none such, embracing every case, could be given, but upon the 
application, under the guidance of reason and conscience, of cer- 

• P. 93. t Gal. iv. 1-6. 






200 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 












tain general principles to' each particular case as it arises. Thus it 
is that virtuous manhood shapes its course through the shoals of 
life, and for the most part safely. Certain it is, that more than this 
general measure of guidance cannot be expected, and is not, in 
fact, vouchsafed. 

Christianity being, as St. Paul declares, the manhood of revealed 
religion, the Christian has emerged from the bondage of the letter 
into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Consequently a 
mode of dealing with him may be adopted which, under the 
earlier dispensation, would have been unsafe. The scanty mea- 
sure of religious knowledge and spiritual understanding which 
the Jew possessed rendered it unfit that any part of religion 
should be left to his discretion ; and, therefore, in his case, every- 
thing, even to the minutest details of the ritual, was prescribed by 
law. And just as children are expected to obey without under- 
standing the reason of what is required of them, so the Jew, in the 
first stages at least of his course, went through the prescribed 
ordinances of the law with but an imperfect apprehension of their 
meaning : his worship of God was not to him a loytxt} largeta, a 
" reasonable service," though by us it is seen, to have been so. 
Redemption not having been actually effected, nor the way into 
the holiest laid open, spiritual realities were veiled under type and 
figure. But now, that these blessings have been purchased and 
vouchsafed, and "we all with open face" behold, "as in a glass, 
the glory of the Lord," believers are released from subjection to 
carnal ordinances, for they enjoy that real fellowship with God, 
through Christ, which the Mosaic system was intended to symbolise, 
and represent. Of this maturer stage of spiritual growth, an 
enlightened understanding in matters of religion is the natural 
accompaniment ; and in the New Testament, Christians are always 
supposed to possess spiritual discernment, both as regards doctrine 
and practice. They are exhorted and reasoned with, as under- 
standing in general what the will of the Lord is, though they 
may err in particular interpretations of it. Erroneous doctrines 
<are refuted, and violations of order rectified, by an appeal to cer- 
tain admitted general principles. " Brethren, be not children in 
understanding : *howbeit in malice be ye children, but in under- 
standing be men ;" " I speak as to wise men ; judge ye what I 
say :" * this is the style of apostolic exhortation. Christians are 
supposed capable of distinguishing between the substance and the 



* 1 Cor. xiv. 20. Ibid. x. 15. 



ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS, ETC. 201 

accidents of religion, and of assigning to each its proper degree of 
importance. Let a comparison, in short, be instituted between the 
style adopted by St. Paul in rectifying the disorders of the Corin* 
thian Church,, and that which characterises the giving of the law, 
and the difference between the two dispensations will be at once 
apparent : — the Jew is treated as a child, the Corinthian Christian 
as a man. 

With this view of Christianity, it was in perfect accordance that 
the external manifestations of the inner life of the Church should 
be left comparatively free and unfettered ; comparatively so ; for no 
one denies that Christ prescribed ordinances, and, indirectly, pro- 
vided a polity for His church. It was to be expected that the 
Christian system would contain no arbitrary or unreasonable 
appointments: nor does it. The two sacraments are reasonable 
ordinances: we understand the import and object of them. Instead 
of being imposed upon unrenewed human nature, they were the 
seals of Christ's previous fellowship with His chosen Apostles, 
who, in this point of view, were the representatives of believers in 
every age. What gives them validity is, not administration by a 
priestly caste, or, according to a prescribed ritual; — no such 
appointments are found in Scripture; — but the living faith by 
which the worthy recipient has already apprehended Christ. In 
matters of polity, what could not be safely entrusted to the spir- 
itual imbecility of the Jew might well be left to the maturity of 
Christian understanding in the persons of the Apostles. Or if the 
supposition be not reasonable that, in so important a matter, the 
Apostles should be left altogether destitute of guidance, we should 
yet expect the directions given to be of that general kind which a 
sovereign furnishes to a person of presumed wisdom and experience 
about to undertake the administration of the affairs of some newly 
formed colony. In such a case a general draft of instructions 
would be delivered, but much would be left to the discretion of the 
governor. The facts of the case appear to prove that such, in the 
work of organising Christian societies, was the measure of assist- 
ance vouchsafed to the Apostles. In the synagogue they had a 
platform of polity providentially at hand, fitted, from its peculiar 
features, to become that of the Church: this polity the Apostles 
accordingly adopted, with such modifications as appeared to tlu*m 
necessary. But they have neither informed us that, in so doing, 
they acted according to an express command of Christ ; nor do 
they make their own appointments absolutely, and for ever, bind- 
ing upon the Church: they enact no law at all upon the subject. 












202 



CHUR.CU OF CHEIST 










If any such law is attributed either to them, or their divine Mas- 
ter, it is not upon the authority of the New Testament Scriptures. 
' The dispensation under which we are living is that of the Spirit ; 
but " where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." * That is 
to say, since in Christianity revealed religion appears in its matu- 
rity, in it also the artificial, arbitrary, service of God, which 
belongs to a lower stage of spiritual progress, has given place to a 
free, natural, and reasonable one. They that worship God now 
must worship Him in spirit and in truth ; in spirit as contrasted 
with the literal prescriptions, and in truth as opposed to the sym- 
bolism, of the ceremonial law. Christianity is, primarily, neither 
a dogma nor a ceremonial, but a life in Christ ; and wherever there 
is life, its visible sphere of agency shapes and develops itself from 
within, and comes to perfection by a law of spontaneous action, 
not by the external pressure of a superinduced form. 

* 2 Cor. iii. 17. 



APOSTOLIC CONCEPTION OF A CHURCH. 203 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE TEACHING OP THE APOSTOLIC EPISTLES, IN REFERENCE TO 
THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. 

The inquiry which has occupied us so long will be fitly brought 
to a close with some remarks upon the structure and statements 
of the Apostolic Epistles, in reference to the point before us. 
These Epistles having been addressed to regularly constituted Chris- 
tian societies, it is reasonable to suppose that they will throw light 
upon the question of the nature of the Church ; and, moreover, 
supply what is wanting in previous revelation to complete the 
doctrine of Scripture upon the subject. For it is the peculiar 
province of the Apostolic Epistles to set forth fully, and in their 
various bearings, the doctrines, of which the outlines, or heads, 
are furnished by Christ himself in His discourses. The first point 
to be here considered is, what the language of the Epistles teaches 
us respecting the true idea of a Christian church: after which, 
some remarks will be made upon the statements of the inspired 
writers in reference to the mystical body of Christ, and its con- 
nexion with the aggregate of Christian societies, which constitute, 
collectively, the visible Church. 



Section I. 

THE APOSTOLIC CONCEPTION OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 

Were the question put to a person of plain understanding, 
unacquainted with the controversies which have arisen on the 
subject ; What, according to the Apostolic Epistles, is a Christian 
Church, or how is it to be defined?- he would probably, without 
hesitation or difficulty, reply, that a Christian Church — as it 
appears, for example, in St. Paul's Epistles — is a congregation or 
society of faithful men or believers, whose unseen faith in Christ 
is visibly manifested by their profession of certain fundamental 
doctrines, by the preaching of the Word, by the administration 






204 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



and reception of the two sacraments, and by the exercise of disci- 
pline. He would direct attention to the fact, that the ordinary- 
greeting of St. Paul, at the beginning of each Epistle, is to the 
" saints and faithful brethren" constituting the Church of such a 
place, fellow-heirs with himself of eternal life ; and that through- 
out these compositions, the members of the Church are presumed 
to be in living union with Christ, reasonings and exhortations 
being addressed them, the force of which cannot be supposed to 
be admitted, except by those who are led by the Spirit of God : in 
short, that the members of the Corinthian or the Ephesian' Church 
are addressed as Christians ; and a Christian is one who is in 
saving union with Christ. 

In proportion to the apparent simplicity of the question, would 
be his surprise to hear it affirmed that he is mistaken, and that, in 
addressing a Christian society as a congregation of Christians, St. 
Paul merely regards it as a society of men professing the same 
faith, and participating outwardly in the same Sacraments' (it 
being immaterial to the idea whether they possess saving faith or 
not); a society invested with spiritual privileges, but not neces- 
sarily realising those privileges; and that, consequently, we 
must lower the import of the terms "saints" and "faithful in 
Christ Jesus," to signify outwardly dedicated to God, and profess- 
ing with the lips the doctrines of Christianity. 

Such, in fact, is the interpretation very commonly put upon the 
Apostle's language ; and since, if it be the true one, the Protestant 
definition of a Church — viz. that it is a society of true believers, 
where the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments are 
rightly administered — becomes untenable, it is of importance to 
inquire into this point a little more particularly. 

That the mode of interpretation alluded to involves a deviation 
from the obvious meaning of the New Testament phraseology is 
not, indeed, sufficient reason for at once rejecting it ; but it does 
warrant us in requiring that the necessity for such deviation shall 
be clearly made out. And, in the present case, this requirement 
is the more reasonable, from the circumstance that the Apostles 
uniformly identify themselves, as regards their Christian standing 
and hopes, with those to whom they write. " Blessed be the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all 
spiritual blessings in Christ;"* "that I may be comforted by the 
mutual faith both of you and me;"f — did St. Paul, when he thus 



* Ephes. i. 3. 



t Rom. i. 12. 



APOSTOLIC CONCEPTION OF A CHUKCH. 205 

wrote, regard himself as but nominally interested in the blessings 
of redemption ? Was bis faitb nothing more than a profession of 
Christian doctrine ? If he must have meant something more than 
this ; if his own faith and his own sanctity were living and real, 
the effect of the Holy Spirit's operation ; then, inasmuch as he 
makes no distinction, as regards this point, between himself and 
those whom he addresses, we must suppose that he looked upon 
them also as real saints and believers. The language of the in- 
spired writers of the New Testament is the expression of that 
Christian experience, or conscious participation in the blessings' 
vouchsafed through Christ, which the Holy Ghost had shed abroad 
in their hearts : their idea, therefore, of a saint, or a believer, being 
derived from their own spiritual consciousness, must have been 
the highest of which the words will admit. But in the sense in 
which they supposed themselves to be Christians, do they, to all 
appearance, apply that title to those to whom they write. 

It will be urged, however, that there are convincing reasons 
why we cannot suppose St. Paul to have employed the terms 
alluded to, and others of similar import, in their highest significa- 
tion : the principal of those reasons being, first, that the various 
appellations applied to Christians in the New Testament — such as 
"saint," " called," "elect," "the sons of God," &c, — being mani- 
festly derived from the elder economy, must be understood to bear 
the same sense which they did under the law ; but under the law, 
these expressions implied nothing more than the admission of the 
Jewish people, as a people, to the privileges of the Mosaic cove- 
nant, the nation being a nation of "saints," an "elect" nation, and 
possessing the privilege of adoption, whether the individuals of 
which it was composed were personally sanctified or not: and, 
secondly, that every visible Church is, and must be, a mixed body, 
comprising both tares and wheat, or nominal and true believers, 
which it is impossible to sever from each other ; besides which, 
it is to be observed that the same persons who, in the beginning 
of St. Paul's epistles, are described as saints and believers, are, 
very frequently, in the course of those epistles, severely repre- 
hended for, not only errors in doctrine but, gross inconsistencies 
in practice ; of which the first epistle to the Corinthians presents 
a striking example. 

The plausibility which attaches to the former of these positions, 
and the frequency with which it is urged in opposition to the 
teaching of evangelical Protestantism, render it necessary to bestow 
particular attention upon it. To specify the productions of authors 



• 












206 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



would be invidious ; but there is no reader of modern English 
theology who will not be able to call to mind works (in other 
respects of great merit) in which the Law has been so made to 
expound the Gospel that the meaning of the inspired writers, and 
especially of St. Paul, has been most successfully diluted into 
something very different from that which their language appears 
to convey. 

Briefly stated, the argument is as follows: — In the Old Testa- 
ment the Jews, as a people, and irrespectively of the moral state 
of individuals, are called the " chosen nation," the "called" of God, 
the "sons of God" — ("Israel is my son, my first-born"), and a 
holy people, or a people of saints. Now it is evident that none 
of these terms necessarily imply the presence of real— -i. e. per- 
sonal — sanctity, for many, perhaps the majority, of those to whom 
they are applied were not, at any period of the Jewish history, 
truly pious : we read that even a whole generation was, for its 
personal demerits, deprived of the privilege of entering the Holy 
Land. Still, whatever the spiritual state of individuals in the 
sight of God might be, the whole nation — the unsanctified equally 
with the sanctified portion of it — was said to be elect, to be con- 
secrated to the service of God, and to enjoy the blessing of adop- 
tion. Now since the Apostles were Jews, and Christianity is the 
historical offspring of Judaism, we must suppose that the Apostles, 
in applying to Christians the terms above mentioned, attached to 
them the same meaning which they bore under the Mosaic econo- 
my ; and that when they called the members of a visible Church 
elect, believers, saints, or sons of God, they merely meant that 
such persons, like the Jews of old, had been admitted to certain 
privileges (e. g. the opportunity of hearing the Word, of receiving 
the Sacraments, and the means of grace generally), which privi- 
leges, however, they might reject or despise (that is, they might 
never advance to saving union with Christ) without detriment to 
their title of saints and elect. In short, all the members of a 
visible Church, be their inward state what it may, are equally 
chosen, and equally saints ; for they are all chosen to the same 
privileges, and to all equally the means of grace are offered, by 
the due use of which they may become fitted for the inheritance of 
the saints. 

That the fact, as regards the Jews, was as it is stated to be is most 
certain. It was only in a national and external sense that they 
were termed the elect, or the called, of God. It was the nation, as 
such, that was termed holy : it was Israel, not the individual Jew. 




AIOSTOLIC CONCEPTION OF A CHURCH. 207 

of whom it was said that he was the son of God. But is not this 
very fact sufficient to throw a doubt upon the correctness of the 
reasoning by which the terms in question are made to mean the 
same, and nothing more, under the Gospel ? For if it be admitted 
that the Jewish nation, in its corporate aspect, was like all the other 
parts of the Mosaic economy, typical of what was to come, the infer- 
•ence appears to be that, while the same terms may be used under 
both dispensations, their meaning will be different, according as 
they are applied to the type or to the antitype. 

Here, 'in fact, is the real source of the error. While the typical 
character of the Mosaic institutions in general is recognised, it has 
not been sufficiently borne in mind that the Jewish nation itself, 
in its external or political aspect, was a type, and nothing more, of 
the Christian Israel, — that is, as Protestants call it, the invisible j l.j 2*^ 
Church, and Scripture the mystical body of Christ. In its peculiar ^^ J,^ J 
relation to Jehovah, as its tutelary God, in its deliverance from LnJ^A hM 
Egypt, its wanderings in the wilderness, and its settlement in Ca- & /2*v*-v* 
naan, the Hebrew nation was a figure, or symbol, of the tiueTt/ui^Al 
Church of Christ, precisely as the paschal lamb, or the sin-offer- U VK Jl*^* 
ing, was a figure of the one great sacrifice to be offered up upon & oJ^va/ 
the cross. This will be clearly perceived when it is recollected ttt**j^ i 
that what passed into Christianity, when the latter became a reli- W< 
gion distinct from Judaism, was not the Jewish nation in its cor- 
porate capacity, but the pious part of it, those who, like Nathaniel 
and Simeon, were waiting for the consolation of Israel. The nation, 
as such, rejected Christ ; and for this sin, the national polity, if not 
existence, was broken up by the destruction of the temple. It is, 
therefore, not literally, but in its antitype, that the nation survives 
in Christianity, just as the paschal lamb appears, under the Gospel, 
not in its proper literal character, but in Him whom it prefigured, 
— the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world. It is 
a rule, which holds good universally, that whatever belonged to 
the Jewish people in its corporate capacity — as, for instance, the 
temple, the priesthood, the Levitical sacrifices, the solemn feasts — 
passed into Christianity, not in their actual literal form, but spiritu- 
ally, or as the type becomes realised in the antitype, the shadow in 
the substance ; so that while the names may remain the same, the 
thing signified by them is altogether different. Thus, for example, 
the word temple, as used by the inspired writers of the New Testa- 
ment, signifies, not, as of old, a material building in which the 
presence of God was symbolically manifested, but, the Church, or 
body of those among whom Christ dwells by His Spirit, Christians 



:08 



church of cueist 










being the living stones which compose the spiritual building ; * so 
that, wherever Christ, according to His promise, is present in the 
midst of those assembled in His name, there is now the temple of 
God. In like manner, the words priesthood, sacrifice, sabbath, 
and other terms belonging to the Law, are retained under the 
Gospel; but while thus retained they all undergo an essential 
modification of meaning, and denote the spiritual realities of which 
the literal objects signified by them were the type. We have only 
to extend this undoubted principle of interpretation to the Jewish 
people itself, in its national — that is, its legal — character, to per- 
ceive that the terms by which, in the Old Testament, its privileges 
are expressed, assume, when applied to Christians, a different 
meaning, or rather betoken the spiritual realities of which the 
former were but the types. 

The oversight, in short, which is committed in the whole of this 
reasoning from the Jewish economy to the Christian, is the forget- 

y^Uiu 4 ting, that, while the Jew was a Jew by natural birth, no one is a 
Christian until he be born again, f Every descendant of Abraham 

AfyJ^- after the flesh was, by the mere fact of his being a Jew by birth, 
entitled to the privileges, such as they were, of the Mosaic cove- 
nant ; just as the subjects of this kingdom are, by virtue of their 
natural birth, entitled to the privileges of Englishmen. Those 
privileges were, as St. Paul tells us, the possession of "the oracles 
of God ;" the " glory," or visible symbol, of the presence of God 
in the temple ; the " covenants" by which temporal blessings were 
promised to the obedient; "the service," or prescribed worship of 
God ; and the " promises" of a Saviour to come. \ These advan- 
tages belonged to the nation as such, and upon the enjoyment Of 
them the Jew entered at once, by virtue of his natural birth ; con- 
sequently, they were possessed equally by the unsanctified and the 
sanctified part of the nation. True it is that, in the high spiritual 
sense of the word, he was "not a Jew" which was "one out- 
wardly." the unsanctified Jew was not a spiritual descendant of . 
Abraham, — was not what he ought to have been: nevertheless, 
the privileges of the Mosaic covenant still belonged to him, • 
because he had received them, not by spiritual, but by natural, 
birth. In the spiritual sense of the expression, every believing 
Gentile was as much a son of Abraham as was his believing 
brother of Jewish origin. Gal. iii. 7 ; Rom. iv. 11. But under 
the Christian dispensation, no one is entitled to the privileges 
of the new covenant by natural birth : no one, unless he be born 

* Ephes. ii. 22 ; 1 Pet. ii. 5. t John, iii. 8- J Rom. ix. 4. 



APOSTOLIC CONCEPTION OF A CHURCH. 209 

of the Spirit, can see the kingdom of God. And so the whole 
question ultimately turns, as most of these discussions do, upon 
the meaning which we are to attach to regeneration, or its equiva- 
lent, the new birth. Does it mean a mere admission to Christian 
privileges — such as the means of grace, the ordinary influences 
of the Spirit, &c, — an advantage which may be enjoyed by those 
who have never experienced what is commonly called a change 
of heart, — or such an enjoyment of those privileges as necessarily 
implies inward sanctiflcation by the Spirit? Is the regenerate 
man one to whom the blessings of the Gospel are merely offered. 
or one who, besides receiving the offer, has accepted it ? But upon 
this point some observations have been already made, to which 
the reader is referred. There is nothing more certain than that 
he only is in the New Testament said to be born again, or born of 
God, who is (or is supposed to be) in saving union with Christ ; is 
sanctified, and led, by the Spirit of Christ; is a new creature, 
morally as well as mystically ; and enjoys that witness of the 
Spirit with his spirit which is the pledge and foretaste of eternal 
life. To denude regeneration of its moral element — to make it 
signify the mere act of admission into a visible Church — a thing, 
that is, which may be possessed equally by those who are and 
those who are not led by the Spirit, of God — is as much at vari- 
ance with the statements of Scripture as it is with the instinctive 
feelings of the Christian. * 

Perhaps there is no passage which throws greater light upon 
the point under discussion than Acts, ii. 47., in which it is said, 
"that the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be 
saved." Our translation, as is well known, fails to give the 
simple meaning of the original, which is, that the Lord added to 
the Church (rovg_ owtyiievovg) those who were being saved, or 
who were at the time in a state of salvation: the question of 

* For this reason, it is not without concern that the biblical Christian witnesses at- 
tempts made, in some quarters, to procure an authoritative declaration that the word 
regeneration, as used in the book of Common Prayer, and especially in the service for 
Infant baptism, signifies merely such a change of state as may belong equally to the sancti 
fied and the unsanctified members of a visible church. We may of course attach any 
arbitrary meaning we please to any scriptural term; but to maintain that by the expres- 
sion " new birth," as used in Scripture, a state is denoted which does not necessarily 
imply sanctiflcation by the Holy Spirit, is not to interpret, but to impose an interpret- 
ation upon, the Word of God. It is better far that the difficulties and inconsistencies 
which prevail in our services should remain than that a positive error should bo formally 
introduced. The word " regeneration" in the service for infants means neither more nor 
less than what it does in the service for adults; the two services being the same, aa<l 
intentionally so throughout : or if there is a difference, it is only one analagous to that which 
exists between the infant and the adult — i. e. a difference not in kind, but in degree, or, 
rather in the measure of development, which of course varies with the subject. 

14 


























210 



CHUECH OF CHRIST. 



their perseverance in that state, or their final salvation, being left 
undecided. That they were brought into "a state of salvation" 
is all that the passage affirms ; but the question is, what did this 
expression, in their case, imply ? Nothing is more common than 
to hear it explained as signifying merely the being brought within 
reach of the means' of grace, or admitted into a visible Church ; a 
privilege which, of course, may be enjoyed equally by the unre- 
newed and by the renewed in heart ; so that all the members of a 
Church, however destitute of sanctifying grace, may equally be 
said to be in a state of salvation. It is certain, however, that in 
the passage alluded to, the expression means much more than 
this; for, on inspecting the context, we find that the "saved" who 
were added to the Church were true penitents and believers. The 
exhortation of St. Peter was, "Kepent, and be baptized in the 
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins:" "they that gladly 
received his word" — that is, did repent and accept the offer of 
salvation — "were baptized; and of such as these, not of the un- 
renewed in heart, were the daily accessions made to the Church. 
And, indeed, a moment's reflection will show that "a state of 
salvation," by the mere force of the words, signifies the state, not 
of those who may be, at some future time, but of those who are 
in the way of l^ing saved ; and no one, we know, is in the way 
of being saved who is not under the sanctifying influence of the 
Holy Spirit* Admission, then, to a visible Church pre-supposed, 
in the Apostles' times, the existence of a new heart; which is 
precisely what is affirmed concerning the import of the word 
regeneration. 

It is with a constant reference to the cardinal distinction above 
mentioned that we are to interpret the expressions which have 
passed from the Jewish into the Christian economy. Thus to take 
the instance of the words "elect" and "called," which express the 
same idea under a slightly different aspect: — the Jewish nation, 
as a body politic, was chosen out of the nations of the earth to 
be the repository of the divine oracles, and to be brought into a 



* The importance of carefully considering the import of words is strikingly illustrated by 
the instance mentioned in the text. Most of the difficulties which our catechism is sup- 
posed to present will be found to disappear, by simply bearing in mind that the "state of 
salvation" into which the child thanks God for having been brought means, not merely 
access to the means of grace, but a state of holiness, a state which, if persevered in, will 
issue in salvation. The child is supposed to be a penitent, believing, child, so far as a 
child can repent and believe, and as such, his baptism being supposed to have issued in a 
real change of heart, he is "a member of Christ" Ac. All this is plain enough when we 
consider that the child prays that God may continue him in the state in which he now is; 
which cannot therefore be supposed to be an unsanctified state : but the erroneous meaning 
attached to the expression "a state of salvation" has prevented persons from seeing it. 






^H*f"*S 



APOSTOLIC CONCEPTION OF A CHURCH. 211 

peculiar relation to Jehovah as its tutelary God: this was a J^t^ujU 
privilege, in the strictest sense of the Word, for the revealed know- yr 
ledge of God was purposely withheld from the rest of the world ; 
and the covenanted advantages connected with it were of a national 
and temporal kind, — such as the possession of Canaan, and 
earthly prosperity. Eternal rewards did not belong to the nation . 
as such, but to the pious members of it. The corresponding fact 
under the Christian economy is, not national, but, individual elec- 
tion; and election, not merely to external connexion with a J^^y 
visible Church, or access to the means of grace (what is to prevent i^, J^ZJ 
any heathen from placing himself under the preaching of the 
Word ?) but, to the effectual grace of the Holy Spirit renewing 
the heart. In like manner, when St. Paul speaks of Christians as 
the "called" of God, he means, not merely that the Gospel invita- 
tion has been addressed to them, but that they have accepted it : 
lie takes for granted that the inward call of the Spirit has accom- 
panied the outward one of the Word. Election to the mere 
possibility, apart from the actual foretaste, of salvation is an idea 
unknown to the New Testament Scriptures. Living, sanctifying, 
union with Christ is everywhere presupposed in those who are 
called the elect of God : — as when St. Paul connects election and 
calling directly with justification; with the foretaste of glory; 
with adoption ; and with the sanctifying work of the Spirit :* and 
St. Peter declares that " sanctification by the Spirit," "obedience," 
"and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ," were the blessings 
to which the Christians whom he addressed were chosen, f 
Whether the persons addressed were elected to continue in the 
state in which they were then supposed to be ; whether their 
election and calling involved the certainty of their final salva- 
tion : — this is another question which has no particular bearing 
upon the point before us. The introduction of the Calvinistic 
controversy into the discussion is irrelevant, and has tended to 
perplex a very simple truth, — viz. that the present state of the 
elect of God is, according to the New Testament, one of conscious 
participation in the blessings of the Gospel ; one which contains 
in itself the earnest of future bliss, whether we suppose it to be 
indefectible, or the reverse. % 

• Rom. viii. 30.; Ephes. i. 5.; Col. iii. 12. See also 1 Thes. i. 4, 5. 1 1 Pet. i. 2. 

X "Every Christian is called and elected to the Christian privileges, just as every Jew 

was to his" "there is no such distinction among Christians as the 'called' and 

the uncalled, the elect and the non-elect."— Whately's Essays, 2d series, Essay III. This 
remark is perfectly just; only care must be taken to attach to the term "Christian" its 
proper meaning. A Christian is a " man in Christ," one, that is, who not merely has had 
certain spiritual blessings proposed to his acceptance, or placed within his reach (if this 









212 



CHURCH OF CHRIST 






The same remarks apply to the term adoption, or sonship, com- 
mon both to the Law and the Gospel. The Jewish vloOeaiaj or privi- 
lege of sonship, belonged to the nation as such ; — that is, to all the 
descendants of Abraham after the flesh, — without reference to any 
distinction between those of them who were and those who were 
not renewed in heart. But this "adoption/' which belonged to 
Israel after the flesh, was but a figure of the privilege which the 
Christian enjoys, just as the "glory" mentioned in the same passage 
was but a symbol of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the spir- 
itual temple — the Church of Christ. If the prophets sometimes 
appear to employ the phrase " sons of God" in a more restricted 
sense, to signify those of the elect nation who were spiritual as well 
as natural descendants of Abraham, it is only one of the many in- 
stances in which prophecy was anticipatory of the Gospel. Under 
the Christian dispensation, the privilege of adoption is inseparably 
connected with the spirit of adoption, wliereby the Christian cries,. 
Abba Father, and which is in him the earnest of the future inher- 



-were all that was necessary to make a man a Christian, every heathen or Jew living in a 
Christian country would he entitled to the appellation; for the blessings of salvation are 
offered to him, are placed within his reach, and he has only to appropriate them), but has 
accepted the offer, and is in the enjoyment of Christian privileges, — viz. the favour of God, 
the spirit of adoption, sanctification, and the hope of eternal life. Every such Christian, 
indeed, — that is every real Christian (and such the Apostles took for granted those to 
be to whom they addressed their epistles) — is one of the called and elected of God. This, 
however, is not the Author's meaning. By "every Christian" his argument requires that 
we should understand Christians of all sorts — e. g. nominal, unsanctified, Christians; every 
one, in short, who has been initiated into a visible Church, it being immaterial to the idea 
whether he have saving faith in Christ or not, or even be a secret unbeliever. That such 
persons have a claim to be regarded as the called, or the elect of God, or the sons of God, 
in the New Testament sense of the expressions, we must require clearer evidence for 
believing than has hitherto been produced. But this is the error which pervades the whole 
of the valuable work alluded to; its foundation being the non-recognition of the scriptural 
distinction between visible Churches and the mystical body of Christ, a subject which will 
come under consideration hereafter. Melancthon teaches us the true view of the relation 
between the Jewish and the Christian dispensation : — Propter has (promissiones corpora- 
Hum rerum) dicebatur 'populus Dei ' etiam mali in his (Judaeis), quia hoc carnale semen 
Deus separaverat ab aliis gentibus per certas ordinationes externas et promissiones: et 
tamen mali illi non placebant Deo. At evangelium affert non umbram seternarum rerum 
sed ipsas res aeternas, Spiritum Sanctum et justitiam, qua coram Deo justi sumus. 
Jgitur illi tantum sunt populus juxta evangelium qui hanc promissionem Spiritus accipiunt." 
Apol. Conf. Aug. cap. 4. 

The same theoretical defect pervades certain sections of another valuable work (Sumner's 
Apostolical Preaching), with the practical conclusions of which all sober interpreters of 
Scripture must agree. On the subject of "grace," for example, the writer, after quoting 
several passages in which Christians are addrossed as regenerate, as members of Christ, as 
washed, sanctified, and justified (Rom. vi. 3.; Col. ii. 12; Rom. viii. 5.), observes, that 
"these addresses and exhortations are founded on the principle that the disciples, by their 
iedication to God in baptism, had been brought into a state of reconcilement with him, 
bad been admitted to privileges which the Apostles call on them to improve:" whence the 






APOSTOLIC CONCEPTION OF A CHURCH. 213 

itance : a Christian privilege of sonship, apart from the sanctifying 
work of the Spirit, is a fiction of divines, for which no ground is 
found in Scripture. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God 
they" (and they only, as the Apostle's meaning obviously is) "are," 
under the Gospel dispensation, "the sons of God:"* this is the 
uniform language of the New Testament, from which no passage 
can be produced in which the expression "sons of God" may not 
be shown necessarily to presuppose a saving change of heart in 
those who are thus addressed. 

To all this, however, it will be replied that the nature of a visi- 
ble Church, which we know must in all cases be a body of mixed 
character, as well as the actual state of several of the churches to 
whom St. Paul addressed his epistles, forbid the supposition that, 
in terming them communities of saints and believers, he could 
have used these words in their highest signification. This is the 
second difficulty which it is conceived lies in the way of our inter- 
preting the Apostle's language literally. But a moment's reflection 
will show that the difficulty is only imaginary. We must recollect 

conclusion drawn is, that in the present day all the members of every visible Church are, by 
virtue solely of their consecration to God in baptism, to be regarded as members of Christ, 
children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. But equity requires that we put 
not out of view what had taken place in the disciples to whom St. Paul wrote antecedently 
to their baptism. Had they not been baptized on the presumption that they were penitent 
believers ? And whence came it, that they gave heed to the message of salvation, repented, 
and believed? Scripture itself informs us,— "The Lord opened the heart of Lydia, that she 
attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul" (Acts, xvi. 14): in other words, a 
special work of grace, antecedent to baptism, accompanied the Word, and made it in their 
case effectual to produce repentance and faith f n addressing a society composed of persons 
who were supposed to have experienced, previously to baptism, the same work of grace 
which had taken place in Lydia, it would of course have been out of place to make any 
distinction between individuals ; all the members of the Church were supposed to be true 
believers, and to have been baptized as such: many may have been hypocrites; but they 
were not baptized as hypocrites or nominal Christians. In short, as remarked in the text, 
St Paul addresses Christians according to their profession, according to what, if their 
profession was sincere, they actually were. How far his expressions are applicable to a 
church composed of persons baptized in infancy is another question ; but it must never be 
forgotten that this was not the case of those to whom St. Paul wrote. Consequently we 
cannot at once, and without further discussion, argue from the one case to the other; before 
we can do this, both the practice and the doctrine of infant baptism must be far more clearly 
established than by the sole aid of Scripture they have hitherto been. The source of the 
error may be thought to be visible in the following passage from the same work;— "St Paul 
authorizes us to believe .... that grace sufficient is denied to none to whom Ute offer of 
salvation is made through faith in Christ Jesus, and who are united to him in baptism." 
(p. 150.) It is not the mere "offer," but the acceptance of Gospel blessings, that prepares men 
for baptism, and the acceptance of the Gospel implies repentance and faith, or a change of 
heart in those who accept it The offer of salvation was made to multitudes who never 
became members even of the visible Church, but remained in their heathenism. 
* Eom. viii. 14. 17. Compare Gal. iv. 5. 7. 






214 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 















that in the Apostolic Church an effective discipline — the very 
idea of which seems to be lost amongst us — existed. By means 
of this discipline, they having been separated from the society 
whose overt acts were contrary to their Christian profession, the 
Apostle, not being endowed with the divine prerogative of inspect- 
ing the heart, was compelled to take the rest at their profession, 
and to deal with them as real Christians,, so long as there was no 
visible, tangible, proof to the contrary. He addressed Christian 
churches not as they were in fact, but according to the idea : that 
is, according to what they ought to be. St. Paul was well aware, 
that, however far the sifting process might be carried, no visible 
Church could ever be rendered an unmixed community of saints : 
but the question is, all that man can do towards making the fact 
correspond with the idea being done, what style of address was 
then to be adopted ? Was the Apostle to attempt a further and 
more subtle discrimination between those who were inwardly tares 
and the true followers of Christ ? The attempt would have been 
equally vain and presumptuous. He took the only course open to 
him. Without pronouncing upon the state of individuals in the 
sight of God, he assumed the whole body to be what it professed 
to be — a body of real Christians. For it must be remembered 
that, however far bis profession may be from being a true one, 
every professor of Christianity professes to be a true, not a mere 
nominal, Christian. Except on this assumption, the Apostle could 
not have proceeded to enforce Christian duties by Christian motives. 
A lecturer on colours must take for granted that his hearers possess 
the faculty of sight : yet he knows that there may be persons born 
blind amongst them. A Christian addressing a body of professing 
Christians must assume that they are Christians: otherwise, he has 
no ground on which to stand. In addressing them as such, he 
does not presume to say which of them are, and which are not, 
living members of Christ : he may suspect, he may even be certain, 
that they are not all what they profess to be ; but is he therefore 
to descend from the high ground of Christian privilege, and take 
up that of mere nominal professorship ? Surely not. The Church 
is to be designated not from the tares, but from the wheat ; not 
from what it is in fact, (for in fact it is always imperfect), but from 
what it aims at being ; not from its present earthly condition, in 
which it is always found mixed with heterogeneous elements, but 
from what it will be at the day of Christ, when a final separation 
will take place between it and everything which did not really 
belong to it. 



APOSTOLIC CONCEPTION OF A CHURCH. 215 

On the same principle it is precisely that forms of prayer or 
praise, for the use of a visible Church, or congregation, are drawn 
up. No single congregation, any more than a national Church, is 
an unmixed assembly of true Christians : yet when a liturgy is to 
be composed for its use, the assumption must be made that all the 
members of the assembly are what they profess to be, true be- 
lievers ; and the liturgical form must be made to express senti- 
ments and desires which none but they who are led by the Spirit 
of God can or do feel. Even an unwritten prayer, offered up in 
the name of an assembly of worshippers, must be constructed on 
this principle. It is not, in such cases forgotten, that there are, 
and must be, tares mingled with the wheat ; but the necessity of 
the case compels us to take no account of the tares, to pass them 
over in silence. For we cannot compose prayers, or praises, for 
those who, by the supposition, have no living faith in Christ ; we 
cannot, knowingly and avowedly, put such compositions in the 
mouth of mere external professors. Here therefore, as in other 
points, we deal with the congregation, not as it is in fact, but 
according to the idea. Before the assembly can address itself to 
the highest work in which it can engage — viz. the worship of 
God — it must make two suppositions: — first, that a Church is, 
according to the idea, a community of saints ; and, secondly, that 
itself is such a community. It never is so in point of fact; but 
that it is not so, is owing to the imperfection inseparable from 
human discipline; for the Church, had she the power so to do, 
would separate from herself the unrenewed in heart as well as the 
vicious in life. Just, then, as it would be erroneous to conclude 
that, because of the inevitable discrepancy between the fact and 
the idea, the expressions occurring in our liturgy are to be taken 
in a lower sense than that which naturally belongs to them, so is 
it erroneous to suppose that St. Paul, when he addressed the 
Christians at Ephesus as " saints" and "believers," meant nothing 
more than a mere external consecration to the service of God, or 
a mere profession of the Christian faith. In fact, what the Apostle 
addresses is not so much the local Church, as such, but the local 
Church regarded as the visible manifestation, in that locality, of 
the one body of Christ ; that part of the mystical body which is 
visible at Ephesus, or at Corinth. The very form of his saluta- 
tion seems to indicate this : for it runs, ordinarily, not to the 
Church of Ephesus, or of Corinth, but to the " saints and faithful 
brethren at," or in, those cities. 

Nor is there any weight in the objection that many of theso 



216 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 






primitive Churches were very defective in doctrine, or in practice, 
or in both ; that St. Paul speaks of the Corinthians as being, on 
account of their divisions, "carnal," and not "spiritual," as babes 
in Christ, and sharply reproves them for their laxity of dis- 
cipline in the case of the incestuous person, and their want of 
decency in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. For it is not 
maintained that the first Christians, any more than those of 
our own day, were, or could be, perfect ; and all that can fairly 
be gathered from what St. Paul says of the Corinthians is that 
they were imperfect and inconsistent. In the remarks sometimes 
made upon this subject, it seems to be assumed that there is no 
medium between our affirming of persons that they are not per- 
fect Christians, and that they are not Christians at all ; whereas, 
in fact, there is no Christian, however holy, who comes up to the 
ideal of Christian practice. " He that is born of God doth not 
commit sin:" it is self-evident that we must limit a statement of 
this kind so as to square with other statements of Scripture, and 
the facts of Christian experience ; and interpret it to mean, that 
no true Christian willingly commits sin, that in every one who is 
born of God sin is a conquered foe, or, in popular language, the 
heart is changed ; but, after all these necessary limitations, there 
remains the great, the fundamental, distinction between him who 
is born of God and him who is not, — him whose heart is changed, 
and him in whom no saving change has as yet taken place. A 
Christian may be deficient in many points of practice, and yet be 
a true Christian notwithstanding. To return to the case of the 
Corinthians : — on what principle, let us ask, did St. Paul reprove 
them for their inconsistencies ? Did he address them as absolutely 
destitute of the vital principle of grace, or as possessing it, but 
needing exhortation to walk conformably thereto ? The latter is, 
unquestionably, the ground which he takes. The Corinthians, 
with all their defects, were supposed to be saints and faithful 
brethren in Christ : the whole of the Apostle's admonitions are 
grounded upon that supposition, and to all save real Christians 
would have been unintelligible, or at least without weight. The 
very metaphor which he uses to signify their imperfect state 
proves this; for when he calls them "babes in Christ," he evi- 
dently supposes that they possessed the principle of life, though 
but imperfectly developed: a babe is not indeed a man, but 
neither is it a corpse. Even the incestuous person may have 
fallen from a state of grace ; for the case of David proves how 
unable we are to assign limits to the extent to which sin may 



APOSTOLIC CONCEPTION OF A CHURCH. 217 

prevail, for a time, over the man of God: — but, however this 
may be, it must be remembered that this person was, when St. 
Paul wrote, no longer regarded by him as even in visible commu- 
nion with the Church, the Apostle having "judged already con- 
cerning him who " had "so done this deed, to deliver such a one 
to Satan ;" * and the sentence of excommunication subsequently 
pronounced by the Church being but the ratification of that which 
had previously issued from St. Paul. 

Let it be supposed, in short, that an effective discipline existed 
in our Church, and that an absent pastor was addressing an epistle 
to the communicants of his flock, by what title would he address 
them ? All that could be done by human means towards making 
the visible Church and the body of Christ in that particular locality 
identical (which, however, is never really the case) being supposed 
to be done, he must necessarily treat those to whom he writes as, 
collectively, saints and believers : because, as far as man's eye can 
discern, they are so : and, in using these terms, what he would mean 
is, that they are real saints and believers : on no other ground 
could he proceed to administer, as the case might require, exhorta- 
tion, reproof, or consolation. 

Thus it appears that what it has become, in some quarters, the 
practice to designate as the "dissenting" view is, in fact, nothing 
but the teaching of Scripture, as well as the conclusion of reason. 
A modern writer, for example, speaks of it as one of the peculiari- 
ties of dissenters that their Church membership presupposes internal 
sanctity and true faith : — "the design and intention of dissenters 
is to admit none but really regenerate and holy men into their 
Churches, &c." The argument by which their principle is proved 
to be erroneous is as follows : — baptism is the rite of admission to 
the privileges of the Church ; " but the only conditions for baptism 
were repentance and faith : there was no mention made of regener- 
ation, sanctity, real piety, whether visible or invisible, as prerequi 
sites to its reception : those who were baptized came to the holy 
fountain, as repentant sinners, not as professing saints," &c. f No 
mention of regeneration, when candidates for baptism were sup- 
posed to be^repentant believers! What is regeneration in its moral 
— that is, its essential — aspect but such a work of the Holy Spirit 
upon the heart as produces repentance and faith ? What other 
regeneration existed before Christ came ? What is "real piety" 
but the same repentance and faith? And are not repentance and 

* 1 Cor. vii. 3-5. t Palmer on the Church, vol. i. p. 312. 



218 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



faith the essential elements of Christian sanctity, not only at the 
beginning, but throughout the whole, of the Christian's course? 
So fallacious is the writer's reasoning against what he terms the 
dissenting theory. "Such a system," he continues, "could never 
compose a Church of professing saints only." That a visible Church 
can never be composed of saints only is admitted on all hands ; 
but it will be something new to the readers of Scripture to be told 
that a Church does not consist even of professing saints ; which is 
equivalent to saying that sanctity is not a note of the Church ; or 
that, as Kome teaches, its definition comprises equally the evil and 
the good. By parity of reasoning, it might be maintained that 
because a field of wheat has tares mixed with it, it is therefore not 
to be described as a field of wheat. Finally we are informed, in 
the same work, that " the Church of England, acting on a different 
principle" (from dissent) "admits persons of all sorts and ages" to 
baptism. That she admits "persons of all ages" is true; but not 
so that she admits persons "of all sorts," if the meaning be, as it 
evidently is, that she is indifferent to the inward state of those to 
whom she administers baptism: for, where repentance and faith 
can be exercised, she requires them both as conditions of that 
sacrament. Were she to dispense with them, she would openly 
proclaim herself to be a society not even of professing saints and 
believers — that is, she would abnegate one of the essential attri- 
butes of the Church of Christ. 

i 



Section II. 

THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST AS DISTINGUISHED FROM VISIBLE 
CHURCHES. THE PROTESTANT DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE VISI- 
BLE AND THE INVISIBLE CHURCH. 



But while we see no reason to believe that the Apostles, in call- 
ing a Church a community of saints or believers, employed these 
expressions in any other than the highest sense, we cannot, on the 
other hand, suppose that they could be ignorant of the fact, that no 
visible church perfectly corresponds to its idea, or that which it 
professes to be. It might be expected, therefore, that, in order to 
mark the distinction between the Church as it is visible and the 



THE MYSTICAL BODY OP CHEIST. 219 

Church in its truth, — that is, as defecated from extraneous admix- 
tures ; the Church as it is now, and the Church as it will be at the 
day of Christ; they would employ different language, according as 
the Church in its former or in its latter aspect is the subject of their 
discourse. This leads us to make some remarks upon the script- 
ural distinction between a visible Church, or an aggregate of such 
churches, and the Mystical Body of Christ ; a distinction which, 
as might be expected, Eomanists are as much interested in denying 
as Protestants in maintaining. 

Nor is it only Eomanists who treat the distinction as a fictitious, 
or, at least, an unscriptural, one. There are many amongst our- 
selves whose tendencies are in the opposite extreme to that of 
Eomanism, but who, from their taking an external view of the 
Church, and regarding it as, in its idea, a community of professing 
Christians (it being indifferent to the definition whether they be 
Christians in deed and in truth, or not), verge on this point towards 
the teaching of Eome. It is, on this account, the more important 
to examine whether the objections that have been urged against 
the distinction alluded to are well-founded. 

What is affirmed in opposition to the statements of the Pro- 
testant formularies amounts to this: — that while, undoubtedly, a 
distinction must be made between those members of any visible 
Church whose holy lives prove that they are inwardly renewed 
by the Holy Spirit and those who give evidence that they are 
not, — between the living and the dead branches of the vine, — it 
is neither proper nor scriptural to speak of the former in their 
collective capacity, — that is, regarded as the body of true believers 
scattered over the world, — as constituting a Church in a sense of 
the word different from that which belongs to the visible societies 
of professing Christians. A question of this kind can only be 
decided by a reference to the language of Scripture : to which, 
therefore, we turn. 

Writers have enumerated various senses which the word hxXrjala 
is found to bear in the New Testament ; — as, for example, it some- 
times denotes a company of Christians, small enough to meet for 
social worship in a single house ; * sometimes a larger society, 
comprehended within the limits of a city, as the Church of Corinth, 
or of Eome, whether the society consists of one or of several con- 
gregations ; and occasionally the whole body of professing Chris- 
tians in the world, — the visible Church Catholic, f An attentive 

*Rora. xvi. 5. 

f Barrow (Discourse concerning the unity of the Church) mentions this as one of tno 







220 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



examination, however, of the various passages in which it occurs 
leads to the conclusion that there are only two really distinct 
senses which the word bears in Scripture ; according as it is used 
to signify either one or more Christian societies, or the Church 
which is described as the body, or the bride, of Christ. 

That the ordinary acceptation of the word is that in which it 
denotes either a single congregation or an aggregate of such con- 
gregations under a common government is true : it could hardly 
be otherwise, seeing the apostolic epistles are addressed, for the 
most part, to local churches, and are chiefly taken up in expound- 
ing the duties of Christians as members of such visible societies. 
But though not so common, the other use of the word is far too 
frequent and too remarkable to be overlooked ; and the language 
of the inspired writers, especially of St. Paul, when speaking of 
the Church in this latter acceptation, is such as to establish a broad 
line of demarcation between it and every other. 

The following passages are some of those in which the word 
occurs, in what has been called, though not very accurately, its 
abstract sense : — " Feed the church of God which is among you, 
which he hath purchased with his own blood " (Acts, xx. 28.) : — 
" Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he 
might sanctify it, and cleanse it with the washing of water by the 
Word ; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not 
having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing " (Ephes. v. 25.) : " And 
gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his 
body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all " (Ephes. i. 22, 23.) : 
" And He is the head of the body, the church" (Colos. i. 18.) 
" That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in 
the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar 
and ground of the truth " (1 Tim. iii. 15.) : " Ye are come unto 
Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly 
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels; to the 
general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written 
in heaven " (Heb. xii. 22, 23.). Our Lord Himself, in one of the 
two passages, to which allusion has been made, uses the w r ord 
"church" in a sense exactly similar to that in which it occurs in 
these passages of St. Paul's Epistles: — "On this rock I will build 
my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it : " 
while in the other, "Tell it unto the church," lie as obviously 

senses in which the word is used in Scripture ; but it is doubtful whether any clear instance 
of this usage can be produced. The passages cited by Barrow do not seem to bear out his 
statement. 






THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST. 221 

alludes to a local society of Christians. (See Matt. xvi. 18. and 
xviii. 17.). 

The mystical and figurative language by which the Church is 
here described proves that the object before the Apostle's mind was 
something very different from that denoted by the expressions 
"the church of the Thessalonians," or "the churches of Galatia," 
— that is, either a single local church or the aggregate of local 
churches in a certain district, or throughout the world. Never are 
the appellations "body of Christ," "bride of Christ," "temple of 
the living God," " Mount Sion," &c, bestowed upon a local church, 
or a collection of local churches as such. But it may be proper to 
point out more particularly the essential points of distinction 
between this and the more ordinary acceptations of the term. 

The Church, then, in the abstract sense of the word, is always 
spoken of as one ; one as distinguished from a plurality of churches. 
There may exist, at any given time, a greater or a less number of 
local christian societies ; but there cannot be two bodies, or two 
brides, of Christ ; there cannot be two temples of the Holy Ghost 
(in a different sense from that now under consideration each indi- 
vidual Christian may be called a temple of God. See 1 Cor. vi. 19.) ; 
nor can there be two cities of the living God. 

Still more important is it to observe that the Church, in this 
mystical sense, is spoken of not only as one, but as, in the strict 
sense of the word, one society ; that is, it has a centre of unity, and 
a common government. This is what essentially distinguishes the 
" body of Christ" from the aggregate of local churches in the 
world, or visible Christendom. The expression Catholic Church 
may be, as it commonly is in the Fathers, very fitly used to denote 
the whole or the totality of the churches which make up, at any 
given time, visible Christendom ; but all, save Komanists, hold that 
the aspect which visible Christendom is ordinarily to present, is 
that, not of one visibly organised society, but of a collection of 
societies founded on certain common principles: the Catholic 
Church in this sense being nothing but an aggregate of local Chris- 
tian societies, distinct from and independent of each other. But 
there is something more than this involved in the figurative terms 
"body of Christ" or "spiritual house," by which the Church "in 
the sense of the word of which we are speaking" is commonly 
described. The human body is not a multiplication of one parti- 
cular member, but an organised whole, consisting of% many differ- 
ent members, which, by reason of their connexion with one com- 
mon head, and with each other, as being all animated by one com- 















222 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



mon principle of life (descending, according to the ancient theories 
of physiology, from the head) constitute, though many, but one 
body. In like manner a building, such as the temple of Jerusalem, 
is not a mere pile of loose stones, but a structure in which each 
particular stone fills its appointed place ; the whole exhibiting unity 
of design, and a combination of parts. In these images there is 
clearly an idea involved which does not belong to the sum total of 
local churches in the world ; and that idea is, Organic Unity under 
one Head, as distinguished from a mere aggregation of similar 
atoms. 

Komanism, we know, teaches that the fact implied in these and 
similar images is actually exhibited in the visible organisation of 
the Papal Church under one visible Head ; and undoubtedly the 
constitution of that Church does present a correspondence with 
the idea of the body of Christ as set forth in Scripture : Protest- 
antism also, as we shall see, has its own satisfactory solution of the 
difficulty : but it is not easy to see how they can extricate them- 
selves from embarrassment who, on the one hand, reject the 
Komish doctrine of a universal visible Church under one visible 
head, and, on the other, refuse to admit the Protestant distinction 
between the mystical body of Christ and the visible Churches of 
Christendom. There must be something to correspond with the 
statements of Scripture on this point ; and it seems clear that the 
mere totality of local Christian societies does not satisfy them. 
The Eomanist has here the advantage, not of genuine Protest- 
antism — the Protestantism of the Reformation — but of that lower 
type of doctrine which in this country, especially during the latter 
part of the seventeenth and throughout the eighteenth centuries, 
succeeded to the teaching of the Eeformers. 

As the characteristic of the mystical body of Christ is organic 
unity under one head, so the component members of it are not 
churches, but individuals. Such passages as the following, de- 
scriptive of the union of the members with the head and with 
each other, are manifestly inapplicable to Christian societies, as 
such. "The Head, even Christ; from whom the whole body, 
fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint 
supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of 
every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of 
itself in love :" * " Not holding the head, from which all the body 
by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit 



Ephes. iv. 15, 16. 



THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST. 223 

together, increaseth with the increase of God :" * " Jesus Christ 
himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the building, 
fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord : 
in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God 
through the Spirit :" f "To whom coming, as unto a living stone, 
disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye 
also, as lively stones are built up a spiritual house." £ The union 
of the members with the Head here described is such, that the 
vital energy which animates the whole body flows directly, and by 
virtue of a real incorporation, from the Head into each member ; 
a kind of union of which, as it is evident, a society, as such, is 
incapable. Between a local church, or a collection of such 
churches, and Christ there is no vital, organic, connexion, such as 
exists between the members of the human body and the head, or 
between the branches of a tree and the tree itself: it is individual 
believers. who are in Christ, as the branches are in the vine; it is 
into individuals, and not into communities as such, that the influ- 
ences of the Spirit are derived from the Head. There is, in reality, 
no such thing as Christ's dwelling in the Church, if the Church 
be viewed as an abstraction, and something distinct from the indi- 
viduals of which it is composed : an evident truism when .stated, 
but the overlooking of which has been the source of multifarious 
error. If Christian communities, as such, may be said to have 
Christ as their Head, it is not by direct union, but mediately ; that 
is, it is because the individuals of which they are composed are, 
presumptively at least, in life-giving union with Him : the socie- 
ties are churches of Christ, but it is the individuals who compose 
them that are (if they be in truth what they profess to be) mem- 
bers of Christ's body. 

Such are some of the peculiarities which in Scripture are con- 
nected with the Church when it is spoken of in its essential unity, 
as the body of which Christ is the head ; peculiarities which, as 
has been observed, are never found attaching to local Christian 
communities. When these latter come under consideration as 
communities, we find ourselves amidst questions of quite a differ- 
ent kind. We no longer hear St. Paul speaking concerning the 
mystical union between Christ and His people; but concerning 
the duties of the society as a Church of Christ ; as for example, 
the proper mode of exercising discipline ; the importance of pre 
serving order and decency in the public assemblies of Christians, 

• Col. ii. 19. t Ephea. ii. 20 -22. XI Pet. ii. 4, 5. 









224 



CIIUKCH OF CHRIST. 









rules for the treatment of the weaker brethren; and (in the 
pastoral epistles) directions concerning the appointment of pastors. 
In this latter point of view, the Church comes before us as a 
society, or a number of societies, having a local, earthly, existence, 
and subject to the conditions which belong to all human societies. 

It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion, that, between these 
two aspects under which the Church is presented to view, there 
is a distinction, and a real one. It has been urged, indeed, that 
St. Paul, when he speaks of the Church as the body of Christ, is 
only taking an abstract view of the subject; and this is true, if 
by abstract be meant remote from sense ; but if the word is to be 
understood in its strict meaning, the assertion does not appear to 
be correct. An abstraction is, properly, something which has no 
objective existence: it is the result of that mental operation by 
which we throw off from individuals, or species, the properties 
wherein they differ, and designate what is common to them by a 
single term: thus the term "man" expresses what remains after 
we have put aside from our view the various differences of 
country, family, person, &c, by which the individuals of the 
human race are distinguished from each other. To maintain that 
St. Paul, when he spoke of the one Church, had in his mind a 
mere abstraction of this kind, is to do violence to the language of 
Scripture; and, indeed, ultimately tends to the making Christ 
himself an abstraction ; for if the body of which He is the head 
has no objective existence, it seems to follow that neither has the 
head Himself. 

It has been suggested also that the mystical language which the 
inspired writers sometimes use in reference to the Church is in- 
tended merely to teach us what the visible Church ought to be, or 
to describe, by anticipation, what the Church of the redeemed will 
be hereafter in a state of bliss. It is perfectly true that the visible 
Church, or, more accurately, the sum total of visible Churches, 
ought to be identical with the body of Christ, though, even if that 
were the case, the latter would still remain, as regards its proper 
corporate unity under its glorified Head, invisible: nor is it to be 
denied that the language of Scripture, when the one Church is the 
subject of consideration, applies rather to its final state of perfec- 
tion than to its present condition : still the explanation in question 
is liable to the objection above mentioned, — viz. that it does away 
with the actual objective existence of that which the inspired 
writers do positively affirm to exist. For though the visible 
Church ought to be a perfect manifestation of the true Church, that 



THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST. 225 

is, ought to be one with it, it never is so in fact, as the prophetical 
parables of the tares, and the fish, which describe the permanent 
condition, not of the body of Christ, but of every local church, so 
plainly teach us. There cannot, in this life, be a perfect separa- 
tion between the evil and the good ; hence the actual state of every 
visible church is a mixed state, and every attempt to separate the 
chaff from the wheat, before the appointed time, must end in 
failure. The local churches of Christendom, therefore, can never 
be said to constitute a body, the characteristic of which is that 
each member is vitally incorporated in Christ, and a partaker of 
the divine influences which flow from Him : unless indeed we are 
prepared to maintain, with the Eomish catechism, that a man may 
oe a member of Christ who has not, and never has had, sanctify- 
ing faith in Christ, and whose Christianity consists in the outward 
reception of the Sacraments. But St. Paul, when he speaks of the 
mystical body of Christ, speaks of an existing reality ; not indeed 
cognisable by sense, any more than Christ Himself is, but not on 
that account the less possessing a substantive existence : he not 
only sets before Christians, and local churches, what they ought 
to be, but announces the fact — indeed, it may be called a doc- 
trine — that, whether this or that church be in a better or worse 
condition; whether local Christian societies disappear, like the 
seven churches of Asia, altogether from the world, or continue to 
exist; the body of which Christ is the Head, communicating to 
every member of it His life-giving grace, is, and always shall be, 
m existence, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 

It is obvious that the same objection lies against the other mode 
of interpretation, — viz. that the inspired writers, when they de- 
scribe the Church as the bod} T , or the bride, of Christ, refer to a 
state of things which belongs altogether to another world. This 
hypothesis, like the former, does away with the present existence 
of Christ's body upon earth, and robs the Christian of that object 
of faith which is expressed in the article of the Creed, "I believe 
in the Holy Catholic Church. 1 ' What the Apostles speak of as 
actually in existence becomes a mere " platonic republic," which 
no one can expect to see realised in this world. 

Moreover, this latter interpretation of the passages in question 
leads ultimately to, if it is not founded upon, an error which, 
we shall see hereafter, also pervades the Romish theory of the 
Church; — that of disjoining from each other what are but 
parts of one and the same body, — the Church militant upon 
earth and the Church triumphant above. That part of Christ's 

15 






226 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 


















body which, is upon earth is essentially one with that part of it 
which consists of departed saints ; one as regards the earnest, if 
not the full, possession of the inheritance ; one as regards all the 
essential properties and privileges of the new creature in Christ, 
though, no doubt, in a different stage of maturity : hence, whatever 
present reality of spiritual blessings belongs to the latter, belongs 
also to the former. In both parts of His body, if not in equal 
measure and fulness, Christ dwells by His Spirit, communicating 
to each member of it, whether upon earth or in paradise, His 
quickening grace : of both He is, in the same sense, the Head. 
Hence, when Christians upon earth are spoken of as heirs of God, 
as risen with Christ, as glorified, what is meant is, not merely that 
they ought to be, and may be, if not wanting to themselves, par- 
takers of these spiritual blessings, but that they are so ; that they 
actually have within them the earnest of future glory, though but 
the earnest of it ; have actually risen with Christ to a new and 
heavenly life, and with Him, their glorified Head, have sat "down 
in the heavenly places ;" and are actually glorified, in such a sense 
as that there is implanted in them that germ of spiritual life 
which, if it be not prematurely blighted, will certainly and 
naturally develope itself into the glory to come* The kingdom 
of Christ is upon earth as well as in heaven ; and that part of the 
body of Christ which is in its present earthly stage of existence 
is as much an existing reality as the other part of it which no 
longer belongs to this world. 

It is admitted that the portion of Christ's body which is upon 
earth is, as compared with that above, imperfect, — imperfect in 
many points of view : in its condition, as being here mixed with 
heterogeneous elements which in the life to come will be separ- 
ated from it ; in its sanctity, for no Christian is in this life without 
sin ; and as regards the enjoyment of its privileges, for though the 
Christian possesses the earnest of the glory to come, it is but an 
earnest, and can be no more, until "the redemption of the body" 
at the day of Christ. But it does not follow that because a thing 
is imperfect, it does not exist. The child is imperfect as compared 
with the man ; nevertheless he possesses all the essential proper- 
ties of a human being. That part of Christ's body which is upon 
earth is in the infancy of the spiritual life, but it lacks none of the 
essential elements of that life ; and it is one, not merely in hope, 

•See 2 Cor. i. 22. and v. 5.; Ephes. i. 13, 14. Pearson (on the Creed, Art. 6.) well 
remarks, " the very name of head hath the signification, not only of dominion, but of union ; 
and therefore while we look upon him at the right hand of God, we see ourselves in hcawn.'" 



THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHEIST. 227 

but in fact, with the community of " spirits of just men made 
perfect." The Christian, though he has "not attained," neither is 
" already perfect," * belongs even now, by virtue of his union with 
Christ, the glorified Head, to '" the general assembly and church of 
the first-born, whose names are written in heaven." f 

In short, if it be admitted that the Church militant and the 
Church triumphant are but parts of one and the same body, it fol- 
lows necessarily that whatever properties or attributes we ascribe 
to the latter, we must also ascribe, with the limitations just men- 
tioned, to the former ; if the one part has a real existence, so has 
the other; if the one be in vital union with Christ the common 
Head, so is the other; if the one be, as regards its sanctity, per- 
fected, the other is in process of being so; otherwise, we make 
Christ's body, as Augustin expresses it, "bipartitum," or to consist 
of heterogeneous parts. 

The remarks upon the subject made by the Catholics in their 
conference with the Donatists are so much to the purpose that they 
may here find a place. Augustin, to whom we are indebted for a 
record of the conference, tells us that, among other objections 
which the Donatists urged against the Catholic doctrine concerning 
the Church visible, — vizi, that it is a mixed body, — they accused 
their adversaries of " making two churches, one that which now 
has evil men mixed with it, the other that which after the resurrec- 
tion will be wholly pure ; as if they who were to reign with Christ 
in glory were not the self-same saints who now, for His sake, bear 
with the wicked, with whom they are in external conjunction." 
To this the Catholics replied, that "they never intended to affirm that 
"the Church of Christ which now has evil men commingled with it " 
(i. e. that part of His body which is militant upon earth) " is dis- 
tinct from the Church above in which no evil is found ; that what 
they meant was, that the self-same Church, the one Holy Church, 
exists under different conditions according as we view it as here upon 
earth or above in heaven: here it has an admixture of evil men; 
there it has not : just as it may be called, while upon earth, mortal, 
inasmuch as it is composed of men liable to death; while, in 
another state, it will be immortal, its members being no longer 
subject to the law of mortality ; and yet it is one and the same 
Church." % The substance of which reply is, that the saint here 
differs from the same saint in another state, not essentially, but in 

* Phil. iii. 11-14. t Heb. xii. 23. 

X Aug. Brev. Coll. ss. 19, 20. 



228 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









certain accidents belonging to his present condition; accidents 
which do not affect the real oneness of the two parts of Christ's 
body. 

It appears, then, that there is scriptural foundation for the dis- 
tinction between the Church as the mystical body of Christ and the 
Church as an aggregate of local Christian societies ; and we may 
add, in the words of Hooker, that " for lack of diligent observing 
the difference, the oversights are neither few nor light that have been 
committed."* Komanism disposes of the difficulty by putting 
aside all that Scripture says concerning visible churches as sepa- 
rate, independent, communities, and applying its statements respect- 
ing the mystical body of Christ to the visible community of which 
the Pope is the head : they who reject the Eomish theory, and yet 
deny the distinction, are compelled to resort to artificial explana- 
tions of the language of the inspired writers, and to suppose that 
they describe a thing which has not, and cannot have, any real 
existence on earth, f The distinction being admitted, all becomes 
clear. The Apostles speak of visible churches, as the churches Of 
Eome or Corinth ; but they also speak of one body, which is united 
to. one Head, and governed by one Spirit : if there is not here, to 
say the least, a twofold aspect under which the Church is viewed, it 
is difficult to say what meaning we are to attach to the language of 
Scripture. The twofold aspect is, as has been said, the Church as 
it is visible and the Church in its truth ; the distinction which 
Scripture makes being, we may presume, expressly intended to im- 
press upon us the fact that the two are not absolutely identical ; 



* Ecclea. Pol. lib. iii. 9. 

t " The single persons professing faith in Christ are members of the particular churches 
in which they live, and all those particular churches are members of the general and 
universal Church, which is one by unity of aggregation, and this is the church in the creed 
in which we believe." — Pearson on the Creed, art. 9. Without entering into the question 
what we are to understand by the Church of the Creed, it may be observed that if Pearson 
is to be understood as affirming in this passage that the one true Church is identical with 
the aggregate of visible churches in the world, his language does not appear to be accurate. 
There is, no doubt, a legitimate sense, in which we may speak of the visible church catholic, 
meaning thereby the sum total of local Christian communities ; but the question is, does this 
satisfy the language of the inspired writers in reference to the body of Christ ? Scripture 
speaks of a higher kind of unity than a mere unity of "aggregation."— Compare Ephes. i. 
22, 23. j Col. i. 18., ii. 19. The process of idealizing, so to speak, the expressions of Scrip- 
ture upon this subject has been carried to the highest pitch by a modern German writer — 
Rothe, who, in an otherwise extremely valuable work (Anfiinge der Christlichen Kirehe), 
maintains that what St. Paul calls the body of Christ was in the Apostle's time but an idea, 
an idea which did not become realised until the episcopal system was introduced, — i. e. 
towards the close of the first century; in other words, that the Apostle is to be understood 
as speaking by a prolepsis, or in the language of anticipation. 



THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST. 229 

that with the Church as it appears in the world, elements are in 
conjunction which do not belong to it as the body of Christ, — 
that is, as regarded according to its true idea. In the latter point 
of view, the Church, though it has a real, substantive, existence, 
is, as a body, not visible, because no human eye can discern that 
which makes it really the body of Christ, — viz. vital union with 
Christ: hence the expression " mystical body," which signifies that 
the object denoted by it is one, not of sight, but of faith. 

Do we, then, make the true Church absolutely invisible, or 
affirm that there are two Churches, one visible, the other invisible? 
In answering these questions, we shall be led to make some obser- 
vations upon the Protestant doctrine of the invisible Church, 
respecting which so much misapprehension has prevailed ; as well 
as upon the connexion between the Church visible and the Church 
invisible, or the manner in which the latter becomes visible. 

It must be admitted that the expression " invisible Church," 
commonly adopted in the Protestant formularies and in the writ- 
ings of the reformers, was unhappily chosen ; for it gave occasion 
to the papal theologians to charge their adversaries sometimes 
with reducing the Church to a platonic republic, having no actual 
existence, and sometimes with making two distinct Churches, — a 
visible and an invisible one. Yet the meaning of the expression 
is sufficiently clear, and involves nothing absurd or inconsistent. 
When Protestants speak of the invisible Church, what they mean 
is, the mystical body of Christ as distinguished from local churches ; 
and when they say that the body of Christ, or the true Church, is 
invisible, they mean nothing more than that that which makes us 
members of the body of Christ, or of the true Church — viz. 
saving faith in Christ — is invisible: it is but another mode of 
expressing the truth that, not outward participation of the Sacra- 
ments, but inward, and therefore invisible, union with Christ is that 
in which the essential being of the Church lies ; and that, conse- 
quently, they only are, in the full sense of the words, of the Church 
who are in Christ by a living faith, and are under the influence 
of His Spirit. Accordingly, the reformers would have better 
expressed their meaning, and avoided the risk of misrepresenta- 
tion, had they, instead of saying that the true Church is invisible, 
simply affirmed that that which constitutes the true being of the 
Church is invisible. That this was the idea intended to be conveyed 
by a somewhat inconvenient terminology is abundantly evident 
from the earlier Protestant confessions, in which that terminology 
is not as yet found : the Tetrapolitan confession (a. d. 1530), for 



230 



CHUECH OF CHRIST. 












example, which nowhere speaks of the Church as being invisible 
while yet it clearly intimates in what sense that phrase, which 
afterwards became a common one, is to be understood. "Although 
that, 11 it says, "which makes the Church of Christ what it is, — viz. 
faith in Christ — is invisible, the Church itself is visible, and can 
be known by its fruits." * 

In the following passage from Bishop Taylor's Dissuasive from 
Popery, the reader will find a clear exposition of the Protestant 
view on the point under discussion. " The Church of God are the 
body of Christ ; but the mere profession of Christianity makes no 
man a member of Christ ; neither circumcision nor uncircumcision 
availeth anything in Christ Jesus ; nothing but a new creature ; 
nothing but a faith working by love, and keeping the command- 
ments of God. Now they that do this are not known to be such 
by men ; but they are known only to God ; and therefore it is in 
a true sense 'the invisible Church ;' not that there are two Churches, 
or two societies, in separation from each other ; or that one can be 
seen by men, and the other cannot ; for then, either we must run 
after the Church whom we ought not to imitate, or be blind in the 
pursuit of the other that can never be found ; and our eyes serve 
for nothing but to run after false fires. No, these two Churches 
are but one society ; the one is within the other ; they walk to- 
gether to the house of God as friends ; they take sweet counsel 
together, and eat the bread of God in common ; but yet, though 
the men be visible, yet that quality and excellence by which they are 
constituted Christ's members, and distinguished from mere professors 
and outsides of Christians, is not visible. All that really and 
heartily serve Christ in abdito, do also profess to do so ; but the 
invisible Church ordinarily and regularly is part of the visible, 
but yet that only part that is the true one ; and the rest but by denomi- 
nation of law, and in common speaking, are the Church, — not in 
mystical union — not in proper relation, to Christ: they are not 
the house of God — not the temple of the Holy Ghost — not the 
members of Christ ; and no man can deny this. Hypocrites are not 
Christ's servants, and therefore not Christ's members ; and there- 
fore no part of the Church, but improperly and equivocally, as a dead 
man is a man ; all which is perfectly summed up in those words of 
St. Austin, saying 'that the body of Christ is not bipartitum : it 
is not a double body : non enim revera Domini corpus est, quod 



* " Id unde habet quod vero ecclesia Christi sit, nempe fides in Christum." — Conf. 
Tetrap. c. 15. 



THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE CHURCH. 231 

cum illo non erit in aeternum : all that are Christ's body shall reign 
with Him for ever.' " * 

The true Church, or body of Christ, is, according to Protest- 
antism, invisible, inasmuch as that which makes us members of 
it — viz. vital union with Christ — is invisible, and none can know 
with certainty who are thus in union with Christ, and who are 
not. He who does know "them that are His," and could at any 
moment separate the wheat from the chaf£ will not, we know, do 
so until He comes again to judgment. Then, indeed, the " mani- 
festation of the sons of Grod" will take place, and the holy Catho- 
lic Church, at present an object of faith, will become an object of 
sight ; but until then, it is, as regards its proper organic unity, or 
in its corporate capacity, invisible. . How, then, does its existence 
become known ; for, as we have seen, the Protestant confessions, 
not less than the catechism of Trent, affirm that it is, in one sense, 
visible ? We reply that the one true Church becomes visible, not 
in its proper unity under Christ its Head, but under the form 
of particular congregations or churches, which are one by virtue 
of their presumed and, if they are true churches of Christ, actual 
and inseparable connexion with the one body of Christ, f The 
latter, invisible in its proper corporate capacity, appears or be- 
comes visible at Jerusalem, Corinth, Borne, England, &c., whether 
the Christian society at each of those places consist of one con- 
gregation or of an aggregate of congregations under a common 
government. Here we see the true import of the Protestant 
1 notes ' of the Church. The Protestant confessions assign no 
notes to the one true Church : were they to do so, they would be 
taking up the ground which the adversary occupies : what they 
assign notes to are the visible churches of Christ, concerning 
which they affirm that that is a true Church in which the Word 
is purely preached, and the Sacraments duly administered. And 
they do so, because they believe that wherever the pure Word is 

* Part ii. book i. s. i. The following statements of Gerhard also place the subject in a 
clear light : — " Distinguimus inter ecclesiam particularem et catholicam. Particulares eccle- 
sias visibiles esse non negamus, Catholicam autein invisibilem asserimus. — Militans ecclesia 
est quidem hoininum Mcietas, qui quatenus praedicatione Verbi et administratione Sacra- 
mentorum, utpotc rfoibilibai et cxternis signis, in unain societatem colliguntur, ecclesiam 
visibilem constitonnt; led quatenus ad ecclesiam catholicam pertinent, interim, spirituali. 
et invisibili Add, vinculo cum capite suo et inter MM inviceui colliguntur; 

quod vinculum el • ihilis, ex en efficitur catholicam ecclesiam esse invisilnlem." 

Loc. 23. f?8. 79. & 82. 

t "Donatistae Scripturarum testimoniorunam ecclesiam commendarunt, velut contra duaa 
quas catholicos affirmasse jactabant; responsum est a catholicis etiam multas ecclesias in 
Scriptura inveniri, et septem ad quas Joannes scribit, qua tamen multa illius unicce membra tut 
inteUigtrenturr — Aug. Brev. Coll. 8. 20. 









232 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









preached, and the Sacraments admistered, there there will be a 
part of Christ's body ; the presence of which, actual, or at any 
rate presumed, makes the local Christian society a true Church. 
The Word and the Sacraments are the means by which the new 
life is both imparted and sustained: we are certain, therefore, 
with the certainty of faith, that wherever these means are in 
active operation, the Spirit of God will by them both generate the 
sons of God and nourish them unto life eternal ; certain, con- 
sequently, not that the local church, as such, is a part of Christ's 
body, but that there, in that locality there will be a portion of the 
latter. The local church remains a true church, whatever be the 
inward state of its members, so long as in it are found the preach- 
ing of the Word and the Sacraments ; but it is a part of the true 
Church only so far as it actually is what it professes to be, — " a 
congregation of faithful men," or saints. 

The point of inseparable connexion between the Church as 
invisible and the same Church as visible will now be understood. 
It is this : — the members of Christ's body are never to be sought 
for save in the visible Churches of Christ : extra ccetum vocatorum 
non sunt quserendi electi. The true Church cannot, at present, 
manifest itself otherwise than under the form of local Christian 
communities ; where they are, therefore, there, and not elsewhere, 
it is. 

The Donatists attempted to make the true Church visible, and 
found themselves unable to explain the parables of the tares and 
the fish: Protestants, while they make the true Church, as such, 
invisible, teach that it is never found separated — never is in this 
life separable — from its visible manifestation, local churches.* 
If we are asked which is the body of Christ? we cannot, like the 
Komanist, give an answer: we cannot say that this, or that, 
visible community is entitled to the appellation: but if the ques- 
tion be, where is the body of Christ? we reply, it is there 
wherever there exists a true Church of Christ. We not only 
affirm that it actually exists upon earth, but we assign the visible 
notes of its existence — the pure preaching of the word and the 
administration of the Sacraments ; for we believe that where these 
instruments of the Spirit's work are faithfully employed, in that 
place there will be a portion of the true Church of Christ, — the 
real source of all that is visible in the local Christian society. 



* " Ecclesia vocatorum latior est quam clectorum, quia multi vocati, pauci electi. Matt. 
XX. 1 6. Quicunque igitur pertinent ad ecclesiam invisibUem, id est, quotounque sunt electi, Mi etiam sunt 
vocati; sed non contra." — J. Gerhard, loc. 23. c. 7. s. 70. 



THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE CHUKCH. 233 

In maintaining, then, the distinction between the visible and 
the invisible Church, we do not, as Bellarmin untruly alleges, 
make two Churches, or even, as some of our own divines speak, 
one society within another : * it is one and the same Church that 
is the subject of consideration, only regarded from different points 
of view, i-o coder and encoder, from within, and from without, f It is 
the same persons that, materially, constitute both the one and the 
other ; but the modus existendi is different in each. So far forth as 
the Christian is a professor of the doctrine of Christ, and in com- 
munion with a local Christian society, he is a member of the 
visible Church, and he remains so, whatever be his inward state, 
until he be excommunicated : so far forth as he is a living member 
of Christ, he belongs to the invisible Church, or to the Church in 
its truth. In the case of the true Christian the two modi existendi 
are united; in the case of the hypocrite they are disjoined; for 
though the latter may have outward communion with a Church, 
he is not a member of the body of Christ. What is affirmed is, 
that, inasmuch as the one true Church can, in the present life, 
manifest its existence only under the form of local Christian 
societies, it and its visible manifestation are never so precisely 
identical that we can at once predicate of the aggregate of such 
societies that they constitute the Saviour's mystical body : of this 
they are indeed a manifestation, but, inasmuch as they contain, in 
external union with themselves, that which does not properly 
appertain to the Church of Christ, and which yet is inseparable 
from it in its present condition as the Church militant here upon 
earth, the manifestation is but an inadequate, and imperfect, one. 
This is all that is really meant by the distinction between the 

* " For because this visible Church doth enfold the other" (the invisible) " as one floor 
the corn and the chaff," <tc. —Barrow, Unity of the Church. 

t " Nequaquam introducimus duas ecclesias avriSiTtprincvuis sibi invicfctn oppositas, ita 
ut visibilis et invisibilis ecclesiao sint species contradistinctae, sed unam eandemquo ecclesiam 
respectu diverso visibilem et invisibilera esse dicimus." — Gerhard, loc. 23. s. 70. "Hence 
it cometh that we say there is a visible and invisible Church, not meaning to make two 
distinct churches, as our adversaries falsely and maliciously charge us, though the form of 
words may seem to insinuate some such thing, but to distinguish the divers considerations 
of the same church, which, though it be visible in respect of the profession of supernatural 
verities revealed in Christ, use of holy sacraments, order of ministry, and due obediein-e 
yielded thereunto, and they discernible that do communicate therein: yet in respect of 
tnose most precious effects and happy benefits of saving grace wherein only the elect do 
communicate it is invisible; and they that in so happy, gracious, and desirable tilings, have 
communion among themselves, are not discernible from others to whom this fellowship is 
denied, but are known only to God. That Nathanael was an Israelite, all men knew ; that 
he was a true Israelite in whom was no guile, Christ only knew." -Field on the Church, 
b. i. c 10. 






234 



CHURCH OF CHRIST 


















visible and the invisible Church. It is easy to see that if, as Pro- 
testants hold, the true being of the Church lies not in that which 
gives it visible existence, but in the unseen work of the Holy 
Spirit in the hearts of Christians, the visible Church — that is, 
the Church as it meets the eye — can never be more than an 
inadequate representation of the body of Christ, or the Church in 
its truth; that these two aspects of the Church never perfectly 
correspond with each other. 

In the first place, as has been more than once observed, the 
Church visible is, and ever must be, a mixed body, comprehend- 
ing within its pale both those who are and those who are not 
savingly united to Christ. For ecclesiastical discipline, the ap- 
pointed instrument of reducing the Church to a conformity with 
its idea, is not applicable to sins of the heart : with overt offences, 
which bring scandal upon the Christian name, its province termi- 
nates. By no exercise of discipline, therefore, however stringent, 
can hypocrites, or secret unbelievers, be removed from outward 
fellowship with the faithful members of Christ's body : yet how 
many are there in every local society of Christians who, though 
outwardly blameless, are destitute of living faith in Christ, and 
of his sanctifying grace. This is no doubtful conclusion gathered 
merely from what meets the eye, and therefore liable to the charge 
of precipitancy of judgment, or uncharitableness. In the parables 
of the tares and the net, it was foretold by Christ Himself that 
such, to the end of time, should be the condition of every visible 
Church* This is the real application of the parables just men- 
tioned, as well as of the passage in the second epistle to Timothy, 

* These parables formed a frequent subject of dispute between the Catholics and the 
Donatists. Augustin urges them, with great effect, against the doctrine of his Donatist 
adversaries; at the same time that, as regards the true idea of the Church, he uniformly 
expresses himself in genuine Protestant language ,• e. g. " Cum igitur boni et mali dent et 
accipiant baptismi sacramentum, nee regenerati spiritualiter in corpus et membra Christi cocedificentur 
nisi boni ; profecto in bonis est ilia ecclesia cui dicitur, ' Sicut lilium in medio spinarum, ita 
proxima mea in medio filiarum. In his est enim qui aedificant super petram, id est, qui 
audiunt verba Christi et faciunt; quia et Petro, confitenti se Christum Filium Dei, sic ait, 
' Et euper hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam.' Non est ergo in eis qui ffidificant super 
arenam, id est, qui audiunt verba Christi et non faciunt." — De Unit. Eccles. s. 60. See also 
Cont. Epist. Par. 1. iii. s. 10. De Bap. Cont. Don. 1. 4. s. 4. Cont. Cres. 1. 2. s. 26. His 
words in the last passage are: Propter ma lam pollutamque conscientiam damnati a Christo 
jam in corpore Christi non sunt quod est ecclesia; quoniam non potest Christus habere membra 
damnata." Even Cyprian, though his views upon this point are not so scriptural as those of 
Augustin, while he affirms that the tares are in the Church, guards himself against saying 
that they are of it: "Etsi videntur in ecclesia esse zizania, non tamen impediri debet aut 
fides aut caritas nostra, ut quoniam zizania esse in ecclesia cernimus, ipsi de ecclesia 
recedamus. Nobis tantummodo laborandum est ut frumentum esse possimus. — Epist. 51. 
ftd Confessores, <tc. 



THE VISIBLE AXD INVISIBLE CHURCH. 235 

in which the Church is compared to "a great house" in which 
"are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and 
earth ; and some to honour, and some to dishonour : " they refer, 
not as the Eomish catechism teaches, to the mystical body in its 
truth and reality, but to the same body as imperfectly manifested 
under the form of an aggregate of particular churches. This, 
then, is one reason why the visible Church can never be a perfect 
representation of the true Church. As long as outward union 
with a local church is no certain proof of invisible union with 
Christ, we cannot, if the latter constitute the true being of the 
Church, affirm that the mystical body of Christ and the visible 
churches of Christendom are equivalent and co-extensive terms. 

But even if it were possible to separate the chaff from the wheat, 
there would still remain an impediment to our holding the Church 
visible to be a perfect counterpart of the Church in its truth — 
viz. that we never do more than approximate to the real position 
which each member of Christ occupies in His body. Many are 
first in a visible church, who are last in the true Church ; and 
many are first in the latter, who are last in the former. As we 
cannot, from the fact of a person's being a member of the Church 
of Ephesus, or of Corinth, at once conclude that he is a member 
of Christ's mystical body, so neither can we, even supposing him 
to be in living union with Christ, be certain that the position he 
occupies in those visible churches is that which he ought to oc- 
cupy, — that which is his place in the sight of God, or in the true 
Church. It is not always the most eminent Christians that occupy 
the chief place in a local Christian society : the spiritual aristocracy, 
so to speak, of the Church is not always recognised, or elevated to 
its natural position. Christ, indeed, has made provision for the 
perpetual calling forth of those who are qualified by nature or by 
grace to lead and to edify their brethren. He gave^ and still gives, 
evangelists, pastors, teachers, ministers of all kinds for the work 
of edifying His body — that is, He bestows the gifts requisite for 
the due discharge of these various ministries ; but, instead of Him- 
self directly pointing out those whom He endows with spiritual 
gifts and graces, He has committed to the Christian society the 
task of proving and authenticating their existence, and setting 
apart to their respective offices those in whom they may be found. 
But in the discharge of this duty, the Church, or those who act in 
its name, may make mistakes; the gift of spiritual discernment 
{du'rAoini^, 1 Cor. xii. 10.) is liable, in passing to its exercise 
through an earthly channel, to contract imperfections which mar 









236 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









its perspicacity ; and thus it will often happen that Christians of 
inferior spiritual endowments shall be called to occupy a place 
above others, in this respect their superiors ; and a visible Church 
will never exactly be, as regards the distribution of its orders and 
offices, as it would be were Christ Himself to dispose them. For 
example, if, as some think, our Lord, by his thrice repeated ques- 
tion to Peter, intended to convey the lesson that love to Himself 
is the great qualification for the pastoral office, it will be acknow- 
ledged that that office is frequently borne by those who are less 
qualified for it than the private Christians over whom they are 
placed in the Lord. So, again, spiritual wisdom and illumination 
are the result of eminent sanctity ; but the official organ of the 
Spirit may be in sanctity far inferior to many of those to whom 
he ministers. Wherever these cases occur, and occur they must 
in the present condition of the Church, there is a want of exact 
correspondence between the Church in its truth, and the Church 
as it meets the eye. There is a hidden life of the body of Christ, 
which, after all is done that can be done to express it outwardly, 
fails of giving forth an adequate manifestation of itself. 

To sum up briefly : — according to the teaching of the reformers, 
the mystical body of Christ is neither distinct from, nor yet exactly 
coincident with, the sum total of the visible churches of Christ. 
If, for the reason just given, we cannot hold the two to be con- 
vertible terms, we by no means, on the other hand, maintain that 
they constitute two distinct Churches ; * for the members of the 
mystical body are always members of some local church, within 
the visible inclosure of which they and the tares grow up until the 
harvest. The true members of Christ cannot, in this life, form a 
distinct society by themselves ; they exist in connexion with local 
societies of professing Christians in different parts of the world, 
and form an actual part, which is greater or less according to 
circumstances, of those churches. For while our Lord's parables 
forbid us to expect that there ever will be an exact coincidence 
between — for example — the local church of Corinth and the 
Church of God at Corinth, there may yet be a continual approxi- 
mation thereto; and such an approximation does actually take 
place to a considerable extent when, through "tribulation or per- 



* Nequaquam statuimus duas ecclesias, unam veram et internam, alteram nominalem et 
externatn, sed diciinus ecclesiam unam eandomque, totum scilicet coetum vocatorum, dup- 
liciter considerari, eouBtv scilicet et e^ojdcv; sivo respectu vocationis et externa} societatis, 
in fidei professione etusu sacramentorum consistentis, ac respectu interioris regenerationis et 
interna societatis in vinculo Spiritus consistentis. — Gerhard, loc. 23. c. 6. 



THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE CHURCH. 237 

secution" for the name of Christ, those who have no real faith— 
no inward union with the Saviour — drop off and leave the 
Church in a state of comparative purity. That, however, which 
remains after this purifying process, and not that which has been 
separated by it, is, according to Protestantism, the^jChurch ; or, in 
other words, tribulation for Christ's sake does £& imperfectly 
effect that now which Christ Himself will perfectly accomplish 
when, at His future appearing, He shall make an exact and final 
separation between the evil and the good. Far from propounding 
the doctrine of an imaginary, or, as Eck, the antagonist of Luther, 
termed it, a "mathematical," Church, we maintain, as strongly as 
the Eomanist does, that, as every true Christian will give visible 
proofs of the existence of the unseen grace which is in him, .so 
the "congregation of saints" will never be without its visible 
manifestation : it will give proof of its existence by means of the 
three great elements of Church life, — the Word, the Sacraments, 
and the exercise of discipline. Only we say that, as in the case 
of the individual Christian, his outward Christianity is never an 
adequate counterpart of his inward ; his attainments fall short of 
his aims ; his practice is below the standard which he proposes to 
himself, so that it is only imperfectly that the life within expresses 
itself outwardly ; so, as regards the Church, that which is its 
differentia — which constitutes its essence — viz. the unseen pres- 
ence of the Spirit — is but inadequately represented in the Church 
visible ; the latter, as compared with the communion of saints, 
always being affected by an admixture of foreign and heteroge- 
neous elements. 

The objections which it is not uncommon to hear urged against 
the Protestant view were long ago shown by Melancthon to rest 
upon no solid foundation. When the Confession of Augsburgh 
was present ad by the Protestants to Charles V., the emperor gave 
directions that it should be submitted to a select body of Romish 
theologians, with the view of ascertaining what possibility there 
might be of the parties coming to a mutual understanding. The 
papal divines, in a document which bears the title of Confutatio 
Pontiftcia, enumerated the principal points of difference between 
themselves and their opponents. Upon the seventh article of the 
confession submitted to them, they observed, "that if, by defining 
the Church to be 'a congregation of saints,' it was intended to ex- 
clude the wicked from it, the article could not, without prejudice to 
the faith, be admitted. That this was a revival of the doctrine of 
John Huss, which had been condemned by the Council of Con 



238 



CHURCH OF CHRIST 












stance, and was incompatible with the statements of Scripture which 
compares the Church to a net, &C."* "It appears to be impossi- 
ble," replies Melancthon in his Apology for the Confession "to 
escape misrepresentation. We purposely added the eighth article 
to show that we do not separate the wicked and hypocrites from 
outward communion with the Church, or deprive the Sacraments 
of their efficacy, when administered by evil men. We grant that the 
wicked and hypocrites are, in this life, members of the Church so far 
as regards external communion in those things which constitute the 
notes of the Church, — viz. the Word and the Sacraments. But the 
Church, though it manifests its existence by outward notes, the Word, 
&c, is not a community the true being of which lies in things exter- 
nal : it is, primarily, a community of believers ; of those in whose 
hearts the Holy Spirit dwells, f That Church alone is called the 
body of Christ which Christ renews by His Spirit : they are not 
the members of Christ in whom Christ is not operative. In the 
Creed we declare our belief in the Holy Catholic Church ; but the 
wicked do not constitute a Holy Church. But what need of many 
words ? If the Church, which is the kingdom of Christ, is to be 
distinguished from the kingdom of Satan, it cannot be that evil men, 
belonging as they do to the kingdom of Satan, are of the Church ; 
although, at present, they are found externally in the Church. It 
does not follow that, because the manifestation of the true Church has 
not yet taken place, the wicked are members of it: whether it be hid- 
den, as now, or revealed, as will be the case hereafter, they only 
are members of Christ's kingdom whom He quickens by His Spirit. 
As to the parables of the tares, &c, they make more for our doc- 
trine than for that of our adversaries, for they teach us that, at 
length, the true people of God will be separated from carnal pro- 
fessors. In those parables, Christ speaks of the Church as it 
appears" — i. e. becomes visible — "in this world, \ in order that 
our faith might not be shaken, when we see it well-nigh hidden 
under the multitude of the ungodly. We must persist, then, in 
maintaining that the Church is, according to its idea (proprie, prin- 
cipaliter, dictam) a congregation of saints ; and in so doing we only 
follow in the steps of Lyra, who long ago said, " The Church con- 



* Conf. Pont. ad. Art. 7. 

t " Ecclesia non est tantum societas externarum rerura ac rituum sicut aliae politise, sed 
principaliter est societas fidei et Spiritus Sancti in cordibus, qua3 tamen habet extemas 
notas," <fcc. 

J "Christum de specie ecclesise dicit, quum ait 'Simile est regnum coelorum lagenre," Ac. 
The German version expresses the idea more distinctly: " Unterricht wio die Kirche tchtinet 
in dieser Welt," teaches us how the Church becomes visible in this world. 



THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE CHURCH. 289 

sists of those who truly know and profess the truth.' * Whence 
that definition of the Church emanates which makes it to be an 
external kingdom, with the Eoman Pontiff at its head, arrogating 
to itself the exercise of supreme dominion, both spiritual and tem- 
poral, we learn from the 11th chapter of Daniel." f 

* Nicolas Lyra (ob. 1340.) was one of the precursors of the Reformation. The passage 
alluded to is as follows : — "Ecclesia non consistit in hominibus ratione potestatis vel digni- 
tatis ecclesiastics vel secularis, quia multi Principes et summi Pontifices et alii inferiores 
rnventi sunt apostatasse a fide. Propter quod ecclesia consistit in illis personis, in quibus 
est notitia vera et confessio fidei et veritatis." 

t Apol. Conf. c. 4. 



240 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

CONCLUSION. 

GENERAL SUMMING UP OF THE ARGUMENT. 

In gathering into one view the results of the preceding inquiry. 
it will not be necessary to repeat the remarks which have been 
already made on the progressive tendency of the earlier revelation, 
from an external system of coercive discipline, and of symbolical 
ordinances, to religion in its inward — that is, its immutable — 
aspect. Taking up the subject at the point where it was left, we 
proceed to observe that the anticipations which we should be led, 
from a survey of the course of preceding revelation, to form 
respecting the nature of the Christian dispensation, have been found 
realized. In Christianity the visible theocracy which prescribed 
to the outward act is seen giving place to an inner theocracy 
— that of the Spirit, — the external instrument of direction 
being the Word of God. Had it been otherwise, the Gospel, 
instead of being the consummation of all preceding dispensations, 
would have been a retrograde movement towards the shadows of 
Judaism. In short, the new Covenant of Christ is seen to be a 
continuation, not of that of Moses, but of the original covenant 
entered into with Abraham, which was founded upon a promise 
upon God's, and faith upon man's, part, and which the Law was 
never intended to disannul. As for the Law, entering or coming 
in parenthetically,* as it did, for a special purpose, it was, as soon 
as it had fulfilled its end, abolished ; and the two covenants, between 
which it had been temporarily interposed, came together again, or, 
rather, the covenant of Abraham received in the Gospel its full 
accomplishment. 

The purposes of revealed religion required that Christianity 
should be embodied in a visible Church, or aggregate of such 
churches, and possess positive institutions: and provisions were 
made to that end, either directly or indirectly, by Christ Himself. 
But the visible institutions of Christianity, whether rites or polity, 
are founded on a principle wholly different from that which per- 
vaded the Mosaic appointments. They are not only fewer in num- 

* Hapci<rn\6$v. Rom. v. 20. 



GENERAL SUMMING UP OF THE ARGUMENT. 241 

ber, but their import and their mode of operation are different. ' 
Instead of working from without inwards, — that is, impressing, 
by means of discipline and habituation, an inward character, — 
they pre- suppose that living union with Christ which constitutes 
the essence of saving religion. When Christianity came into the 
world, the Law, which operated by means of external discipline, 
was presumed to have done its work ; and Christianity, instead of 
being a new law, took up the disciple of Moses at the point of spir- 
itual progress at which the Law had left him, and carried him on 
to the freedom of the Gospel — the liberty of that real sonship 
which comes to man through union with the only begotten Son of 
God. The same process is repeated in the case of each individual 
Christian. The moral law does its work first on the heart, but only 
to lead to an immediate apprehension of Christ in His various 
offices by faith. Hence the sacraments are efficacious, not ex opere 
operato, but because of the faith of the receiver ; which faith they 
seal and strengthen indeed, but do not in the first instance commu- 
nicate ; for ordinarily it comes by the Word of God, which is the 
sword of the Spirit. As regards the organization of Christian 
societies, the pattern after which it was to proceed was not delivered 
directly by Christ: it was in existence long before the Saviour 
appeared upon earth. And the work itself proceeded slowly, and 
by degrees, as need required. The Church had no existence, as an 
institution, antecedently to that of believers in Christ : * it was first 
visible in those believers, when, on the day of Pentecost, they 
received the new spiritual influence which flows from the glorified 
Saviour. All that followed in the way of external organization 
was the result, and the visible evidence, of the life within; just as 
in the individual Christian the visible fruits of the Spirit proceed 
from the sanctified affections imparted to him from above. Further 
additions to the simple polity of the first congregation of believers, 
were deferred until the want of them was felt. This comparative 
liberty of action, as regards external matters, is precisely what we 
should expect if Christianity be, as compared with Judaism, the 
manhood of the spiritual life; if it be a religion of spirit and truth ; 
if in it that real fellowship of man with God, which preceding dispen- 
sations did but pre-figure, is vouchsafed to all believers. 

Such are the facts which an examination of the inspired record 
has brought out to view ; and the conclusion to which they lead 
seems obvious. When we come to define what the Church of 

* For some good observations on this point, see Moehler's work, Einheit in tier Kirche, 
sect. 49. 

16 



242 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

'Christ is, in its essential being, we must adopt the Protestant 
definition, — viz. that it is, primarily and before it is anything 
else, a community of saints. For the definition of a thing must 
express its differentia, or specific difference ; and its differentia must 
be drawn from that in it which is eternal and unchangeable ; that 
which is the real basis of its visible existence ; that which makes 
it what it is antecedently to the exhibition of its visible organic 
form. But this, in the case of the Christian Church, we have 
found to be the unseen presence of the spirit of Christ. This is 
what gives to the Church its existence in the sight of God, — that 
is, its real, as distinguished from its apparent, existence. The 
spiritual presence of the Saviour was, in fact, vouchsafed ante- 
cedently to the use of any of the visible ordinances, or appointments, 
by which its existence was to be permanently manifested ; for the 
celebration of the Sacraments, and the regulations of polity, fol- 
lowed, not preceded, the invisible power from above which trans- 
formed a company of Jewish believers into a Church of Christ. 
The order of things thus at the first divinely established is an 
intimation of that which was to be observed throughout the whole 
course of the dispensation. For thus we learn that it is neither 
sacraments nor an Apostolical ministry that give being to the 
Church : they did not give it being when it first came into exist- 
ence, and what they did not confer then they cannot confer now. 
What they gave to the Church, then, was not its true, but its 
visible, being, — its being in the sight of men: and this is pre- 
cisely the relation in which they now stand to it. Not that the 
Sacraments are not positive appointments, and of perpetual obli- 
gation; not that the Church is not essentially visible: — all that is 
affirmed is that its true essence does not lie in the appointments 
by which it becomes visible, but in that which those appointments 
presuppose, — viz. the inhabitation of Christ by His Spirit in the 
hearts of believers. When Christ, according to His promise, came 
into the midst of the primitive One Hundred and Twenty, the new 
temple of God was really established upon earth, though as yet it 
had not put on a visibly organized form. 

In perfect conformity with this view of the Church we have 
found the Apostles addressing Christian Churches as societies, not 
of mere professors of the Christian faith, but of saints and be- 
lievers ; and on that ground urging upon them the duties of a 
Christian life. Each Church is regarded, not as an institution, but 
as a living body, animated throughout by the Spirit of God : from 
which internal spring of action all its acts, as a Church, are sup- 



GENERAL SUMMING UP OF THE ARGUMENT. 243 

posed to emanate. No visible Church is exactly what it professes 
to be ; but any difficulty hence arising is obviated by the protestant 
and scriptural distinction between the body of Christ as it is in 
itself and as it becomes visible, or, in popular language, between 
the invisible and the visible Church. In its present imperfect 
manifestation, as an aggregate of visible churches, the mystical 
body of Christ appears in external conjunction with elements 
which do not properly belong to it, and which yet it cannot sepa- 
rate from itself: these, therefore, to use the language of Augustin, 
it tolerates until the day of Christ, without, however, lowering its 
own proper idea, so as to make it comprehend both the tares and 
the wheat. Hence the great importance of that distinction, without 
the aid of which it is difficult either to reconcile Scripture with 
itself or the actual facts of the Church with Scripture. Eomanism 
meets the difficulty by lowering the idea so as to correspond with 
the fact, thereby depriving the Church of all its real value in the 
eye of the Christian, and reducing it, as Melancthon observes, to 
the level of a mere secular polity. 

If the progressive tendency of revelation from the first, and the 
actual facts connected with the establishment of Christianity, are 
incompatible with the Eomish conception of the Church, not less 
irreconcileable is that conception with Christian feeling and the 
conclusions of reason. Nothing can be more offensive to Chris- 
tian instinct, if we may be allowed the expression, than the notion 
that Christ's mystical body — the holy Catholic Church — compre- 
hends, according to its idea, both the good and the bad, — that is, 
that it is, in its true essence, a body morally indifferent. Let the 
theory be pushed to its extreme limit; let it be supposed that 
sanctifying faith were altogether to perish from Christendom, 
leaving, however, the polity of the Church and the visible signs 
of the Sacraments in existence ; — we should still have to believe 
that the members of such Christian societies, if they may be so 
called, are true members of Christ's body, and consequently of 
Christ Himself; and, because they are in Christ, are in a state of 
salvation, or in the way of being saved ! The enormity of such a 
view is manifest: yet it is only the legitimate consequence of the 
Romish theory. But this theory offends against reason also. For 
it severs the Church militant from the Church triumphant, and 
makes the body of Christ, which Scripture affirms to be one, to 
consist of two incongruous parts. It has been already observed 
that the two parts of which the body of Christ is composed — the 
Church militant and the Church triumphant — are in real, though 



244 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 












not visible, conjunction, and together make up the one body of 
which Christ is the head.* Now it is difficult to conceive how 
one body under one head, the members of which, by the supposi- 
tion, have a vital organic connexion with the head, can be com- 
posed of two heterogeneous parts, or resemble the ill-compacted 
image of Daniel, the head of which was of fine gold, and the feet 
part of iron and part of clay. But, according to the Komish 
doctrine, this is actually the case. That part of Christ's body 
which consists of departed saints is, confessedly, a community, not 
of mixed composition, as every visible Church on earth is, but of 
saints, in the strict and highest sense of the word. We have 
ground to believe that with their mortal bodies the saints deposit 
whatever of sin and imperfection adhered to them in this life; 
and that the work of grace, which was here incomplete, is per- 
fected after death. Thus while the severance of the whole body 
from the wicked, who were here in external conjunction with it, 
is deferred until the end of all things, a partial separation is even 
now effected by the transfer of each sanctified soul, as it departs 
from the body, into a place, or state, where there is no admixture 
of evil. This part of the body of Christ, therefore, is, in its 
composition, essentially holy ; the holiness of its members being 
not a separable accident, but an essential property; not merely a 
corporate, but a personal, one. But, according to the teaching of 
Eome, the other part — the Church militant upon earth — is of a 
different character, being, according to the idea, a community of 
mixed composition, comprehending within its pale both good and 
bad : it is holy only in its corporate capacity, as being consecrated 
to the service of God, which is by no means incompatible with 
the supposition of its members being personally unsanctified. 
Thus we have two parts, heterogeneous in nature, coalescing into 
one homogeneous whole : the part in paradise excluding from its 
idea any admixture of evil ; the part upon earth embracing within 
itself both the renewed and the unrenewed in heart. How an 
amalgamation of this kind can take place it is difficult to conceive. 
"We may place things the formal characteristic of which is diverse 
side by side, or in simple juxtaposition; but we cannot, either in 
fact or mentally, combine them into one homogeneous body. 
The same difficulty may be thus stated : — If the wicked are 



* The body, that is, so far as it is completed ; for, in strictness of language, the Church 
of Christ comprehends, not only the departed saints and those now upon earth, but also 
those who shall believe upon Him to the end of time. At present the Church is imperfect, 
because the number of God's elect is not accomplished. — See Burial Service, First Collect 



GENERAL SUMMING UP OF THE ARGUMENT. 245 

members of Christ by virtue of their being members of a visible 
Church of Christ, and continue so, unless excommunicated, to the 
last moment of life, why should they not, in a future state, still be 
members of Christ ? Death, it will perhaps be replied, separates 
them from that Church of Christ which is His body. But why 
should death do so ? Death effects no essential change in men's 
spiritual condition : as the tree falls so does it lie. I£ then, they who 
are destitute of the Spirit of Christ may yet be members of Christ 
and of Christ's body here, why should they not continue to be so 
hereafter ? * In a word, if the Church of Grod upon earth is, in its 
true idea, a body of mixed composition, there is no reason why 
the Church in paradise should not be the same: a conclusion 
which, however inevitable on Romish principles, is too much 
opposed to Scripture to be openly maintained. 

It is no alleviation of the difficulty to urge that even in those 
who constitute the body of Christ upon earth — that is, according 
to Protestant views, true Christians — there is a contest going on 
between the Spirit and the flesh, and, consequently, a mixture of 

* The degree of indistinctness which most students of Pearson must have felt to pervade 
his article on the "Holy Catholic Church" proceeds entirely from his setting out with the 
position that the Church, in its idea, comprehends hoth good and bad, and is called " holy" 
only " as St. Matthew calls Jerusalem the holy city, when we know that there was in that 
city a general corruption in manners." (On the Creed, p. 578. Oxford. Edit 1833.) 
Immediately afterwards he proceeds to remark that " of those promiscuously contained in 
the Chureh, such as are void of all saving grace while they live and communicate" 
(outwardly he must mean) "with the rest of the Church, and when they pass out of this life, 
die in their sins, and remain under the eternal wrath of God ; as they were not in their 
persons holy while they lived, so are they in no way of the Church after tfieir death, neither as 
members of it nor as contained in it." Assuming Pearson's original position to be correct, 
we ask, why are such persons not members of the Church after death as well as before ? If, 
notwithstanding their personal unholiness, they were true members of the body of Christ 
while they lived, what is there in death which should all at once deprive them of this 
privilege? Pearson supplies no answer to this obvious question. What is evidently 
wanting to justify his statement is the Protestant doctrine, that those who "are not in their 
persons holy" do not, even in this life, properly belong to the Church; for if this be so, 
we can then understand how death deprives them, not of real church-membership, for that 
they never enjoyed, but of that mere external connexion which they here had with the body 
of Christ. At death they do not cease to be members of the Church; but their never having 
been so, is then manifested; death does not sever them from the Church, but proves that 
they were never really of it. Elsewhere, however, in the same article, Pearson fully adopts 
the Protestant view, and, in feet, answers himself; "If I have communion with a saint of 
God, as such, while he liveth here, I must still have communion with him when ho is 
departed hence: because the foundation of that communion cannot be removed by death. 
The mystical union between Chrigt and His Church — the spiritual conjunction of the mem- 
ben to the head — is the true foundation of that communion which one member hath with 
another. But. death, which is nothing but the separation of the soul from the body, maketh 
no separation in the mystical union — no breach of the spiritual conjunction -and conse- 
quently there must continue the same communion, because there remaincth the tame 
foundation." -Pp. 600, 601. 



246 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









good and evil, which is not the case with the Church of the 
departed : * so that, even on their own ground, Protestants cannot 
make the two coalesce into one communion. For to admit that 
the Christian is not perfect, is by no means to admit that he 
is under the dominion of sin ; and the objection proceeds on the 
supposition that we have no alternative but to maintain the one 
proposition or the other. It is true that Christians never in this 
life attain a perfect freedom from sin : it is true that there is ever 
going on within them a conflict between good and evil ; and that, at 
best, their holiness is imperfect. But the distinctive feature of the 
Christian is, that he struggles successfully against sin ; that sin is 
no longer dominant in him : he is a real saint, though an imper- 
fect one. His inward man is emancipated from the thraldom of 
evil, though the traces of his former state of slavery are yet 
visible. This is the light in which Scripture always represents 
the Christian. It seems not to recognise the sin that yet cleaves 
to him as properly part of himself, or, at any rate, as essentially 
interfering with the present enjoyment of his spiritual privileges. 
Imperfect as he is, he is actually risen with Christ : he has within 
him the earnest of the inheritance, the commencement and pledge 
of eternal life itself. The remnants of an evil nature which still 
cleave to him belong not to him as a Christian, any more than the 
decaying husk out of which the butterfly is evolving itself is part 
of the insect itself. The Christian life here is as essentially one 
with that of the glorified saints as the bud with the flower, the 
child with the man. The saint here is not a different being from 
the same saint in paradise, but one and the same person in diffe- 
rent stages of spiritual growth. Hence there can be a real com- 
munion between that part of the body of Christ which is upon 
earth and that part which is in the place of separate spirits ; the 
Spirit of Christ, the true foundation of their communion, reigning 
equally in both, though in the former His reign is not so undis- 
turbed as it is in the latter. Augustin, as quoted by Bishop 
Taylor (Dissuasive, &c), touches upon this flaw in the Eomish 
theory, when he remarks : — non revera Domini corpus est, quod 
cum illo non erit in oeternum," that is not truly the body of Christ 
which is not to reign with Christ eternally. 

It is only the Protestant that assigns to the Church a place 
among the articles of the Christian faith. Faith is the evidence 
of things not seen, and, as such, is opposed to sight. Faith dis- 



• Gladstone's Church Principles, Ac. p. 115. 



GENEEAL SUMMING UP OF THE ARGUMENT. 247 

cerned — -what to the eye of sight was invisible — in Jesus of 
Nazareth the Only begotten son of God. Were the Church 
primarily a visible institution or system ; there would be no more 
need of faith now to realize its existence than there was need of it 
to assure the Jew of the existence of the Mosaic institutions. The 
authors of the Romish Catechism, unable in any other way to 
explain why the Church should form an article of the Creed, refer 
us to the "mysteries" or sacraments therein celebrated, the nature 
of which, we are told, is beyond human comprehension.* But 
this is faith in the sacraments, not faith in the Church. ISTor is 
Bellarmin more successful in extricating himself from the diffi- 
culty, when he urges that, whereas the Church is a society of those 
who profess the doctrines of Christianity, and what the Christian 
doctrines are is matter not of sight, but of faith, this is sufficient 
to account for the Creed's containing the article in question ; f for 
this, again, is only faith in the Christian faith. It is the Church 
itself that is presented as an object of faith; and why it is so, is, 
on Protestant grounds, easily understood. The visible Church, in 
its ordinary state, so little answers to its true idea, that the Chris- 
tian, looking upon the outward appearance only, might well be 
tempted to doubt whether the gates of hell had not, contrary to 
Christ's promise, prevailed against Christ's mystical body. What 
is the history of the Church but a history of the heresies, divi- 
sions, and scandals, which have ever deformed the face of visible 
Christianity ? To the Christian the aspect of visible Christianity 
is perplexing in the extreme ; and were it not for the sure word 
of promise, his hasty conclusion would resemble that of Elijah 
under analogous circumstances. But here faith, in its proper 
office, interposes, and realizes to the believer what we cannot see. 
The promise of Christ assures him that, although this or that 
visible Church may become corrupt, and finally perish, the true 
Church never can fail : the same promise enables him to believe 
that, notwithstanding the sins, divisions, imperfections, and changes 
incident to the Church visible, the Church, in its eternal and un- 
changeable attributes of unity, truth, and holiness, is not the less 
in being, and not the less secure against the assaults of every enemy. 
Comparing the two theories in a philosophical point of view, we 
must assign the superiority to the Protestant. A religious society 
the distinctive being of which consists in its ritual, or polity, is 

*"Etsi quivis ratione et sensibus percipit ecclesiam .... tanien ilia myftarkfc quae in 
8ancta eccle.sia contineri declaratum est, mens fide tantummodo illustrata intelligere potest." 
— Cap. x. 9. 21. 

t De Eccles. Mil. 1. iii. 15. 



248 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 












obviously in a lower stage of progress than one which has its true 
characteristic in the inner spirit that pervades it ; for no one surely 
will deny that religion has not attained its proper end until it has 
become a disposition of the heart. If there be two religious com- 
munities, of one of which it is the characteristic to work from 
without inwards, as a mould impresses its likeness upon the passive 
clay ; while in the other the mode of working is from within out- 
wards, the visible institutions being, as in all forms of organic life, 
the result and the manifestation of the spirit within ; there can be 
no doubt that the latter alone fully answers to the idea of a reli- 
gious society. The former may have its use and its value, but it 
can only be as introductory to the latter, which is exactly the rela- 
tion in which Judaism stands to Christianity. The Law, imper- 
fect as it was in itself, had its use in preparing the way for the 
Gospel ; but it is an abuse of it — a misconception of its place in 
God's dispensation — to reproduce it under the present dispensa- 
tion. Moreover, if the question were proposed, how can we best 
secure the visible extension of the Church, and a vigorous develop- 
ment of church life in polity, discipline, the use of the Sacraments, 
and spiritual exercises, common sense, as well as Scripture, would 
dictate the reply : first form and strengthen the spiritual life within, 
which, if it exist in a healthy state, will inevitably throw itself out 
into a corresponding energy of action: whereas, to begin from 
without — to aim in strengthening the life within by multiplying 
'outward observances, in which the act done is more regarded than 
the spirit in which it is done — can end in nothing but disappoint- 
ment : it may produce a semblance of religious activity, but this 
activity will be mechanical, — not the spontaneous energy of a liv- 
ing being. Bodily vigour is better promoted by strengthening the 
central functions than by carefully cherishing the extremities of the 
system. A religious system which has its true being within pos- 
sesses a substantial ground of permanent visibility ; for life and feel- 
ing struggle for outward expression, and rest not until they have 
attained their suitable manifestation : but a religion, the essence of 
which lies in its visible institutions, tends, by an inevitable pro- 
cess, to its own dissolution : unsustained by a living energy within, 
the husk decays, and at length drops off. Just in proportion, then, 
as Protestantism, as compared with Komanism, takes the inward 
view of the Church, does it place the legitimate expansion of the 
various elements of visible church life upon a surer and more per- 
manent basis * 

* In reference to this point, Moehler has a remarkable passage: "It is not to be doubted 
that Christ maintains His Church in vigour by means of those who live in faith, belong to 



GENERAL SUMMING UP OF THE ARGUMENT. 249 

It is not indeed to be denied that Protestantism, inasmuch as it 
does not profess to be absolute truth, but truth as opposed to 
Komanism, may, like all systems which have arisen from reaction, 
and have been framed in opposition to strongly felt evils, give 
birth to tendencies which, when carried out, are destructive of the 
conditions under which Christianity was intended by its divine 
Founder to exist in the world. The temptation either to under- 
value the external means of grace or to regard the inward fellow- 
ship of the Spirit, not only as, what it is, the real basis of the 
visible unity of Christians, but as, of itself, compensating for the 
absence of such unity where unhappily it does not exist, is that 
to which the Protestant is exposed, and against which he must be 
on his guard. He may be tempted to forget that the sacraments, 
if they do not work ex opere operato, are yet special and effectual 
seals of our union with Christ ; yea, are ordinarily necessary to 
salvation ; and that apostolic, or even ecclesiastical, regulations of 
polity, if they cannot be proved to be of the essence of the Church, 
are not on that account to be regarded as of no importance. He 
may not sufficiently bear in mind that the spiritual life in the 
hearts of Christians must necessarily be in a feeble condition if it 
does not succeed in producing visible results in the way of unity 
and organization ; and that the Church can only operate upon the 
world by means of its visible ordinances, and its visible corporate 
life. It must be admitted, in short, that there is an affinity be- 
tween Protestantism and mysticism, or gnosticism, which renders 
it possible for the former to degenerate into the latter. But it 
should be remembered that the Komish theory also has its evil 
tendencies, and those of a more pernicious character than belongs 
to the extreme of ultra-Protestantism. Fanaticism, superstitition, 
and the practices of the ascetic discipline, are the perversions of 
religious life which the Komish doctrine of the Church has a ten- 
dency to produce, and in fact has produced: perversions which 
are less susceptible of correction than those connected with spirit- 
ualistic tendencies. It should seem, too, that that theory must, 
when its natural results are not neutralised by other iniluen 
operate injuriously upon the standard of Christian practice : to Bay 
the least, its tendency is to keep out of sight the important truth 

Him in spirit, and hope for his appearing: these, unquestionably, are the true supporter! >l 
the visible Church. As for the wicked in the Church — that is, the unbelieving and the 
hypocrites, — the dead members of Christ's body, — they would not for a tingle day maintain 
the Church, even in its visibility; as far as in them lies, they divide it and expofe it to con- 
tempt."— Symbolik, p. 431.. The wonder is how, from such an admission, he was not le'' 
to question the soundness of the Romish theory. 



250 



CHURCH OF CUEIST, 















that "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteous- 
ness, peace, and joy, in the Holy Ghost." * In short, the difference 
between the Protestant and the Romanist being, that the former 
sets out from a true conception, which may be perverted, the latter 
from a false conception which may be corrected ; it is obvious that, 
both being supposed liable to an erroneous extreme, the evil in 
the former case is likely to be less hurtful, and more easily rec- 
tified, than it is in the latter. 

It need hardly be observed, in conclusion, that every view of 
the Church, whether it call itself Romish or not, which coincides 
with Romanism in making the inward fellowship of the Christian 
with Christ a thing separable from the idea, or definition, of the 
Church ; every view which, while it admits that such fellowship 
is the object for which men are brought into the Church, is an end 
to be aimed at by Christians, denies that it is of the essence of 
Church membership; is, so far, erroneous. It matters little, in 
this point of view, whether we take our stand on fully developed 
papal Romanism or stop short at the episcopal theory of Cyprian : 
a difference of opinion as regards the supremacy of the pope does 
not affect the real identity of the theory, which in either case is, 
that the Church is primarily a visible institution established for 
the purpose of making men Christians ; according to the Romanist 
a papal, according to the Cyprianist an episcopal, institution. This 
indeed is evident ; but it is a singular circumstance that theological 
views, generally supposed to be the very opposite of Romanism, 
are sometimes found conducting to the same conclusion on the 
subject of the true idea of the Church. Rationalistic tendencies, 
especially in relation to the doctrine of spiritual influence, lead 
commonly to an external conception of the Church, or to the 
position that the Church is, according to its idea, a society of per- 
sons professing the Christian faith, and visibly participating in the 
sacraments ; which differs not essentially from the Romish doctrine 
upon the subject. In this, as in other instances, extremes are 
found to meet. But whatever be the parentage of this conception 
of the Church, — whether Romanism or rationalism, — it is to be 
rejected, as opposed to the teaching of the Reformers, and, which 
is still more important, as contrary to that of Scripture. 



* "Si ecclcsiam tnntum definiemus extcrnam politiam esse bonorum et malorum, non 
intelligent homines regnura Christi esse jnstitiam cordis et donationem Spiritus Sancti, sed 
judicabunt tan turn cxtcrnain observationem esse certorum cultuum ac rituum." — Melana 
Apol. Conf. Art. 7. s. 12. 



BOOK II. 

THE NOTES AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE CHURCH. 



In most of the principal works which the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries produced on the "Romish controversy the reader 
meets with a long discussion upon tv hat are called the notes of the 
Church, — or the visible tokens by which it may be known, and 
distinguished from other religious communities. Such a topic of 
controversy implies division ; for it supposes that there exist rival 
communities, each claiming to be a portion of the visible church, 
or one arrogating to itself that title, to the exclusion of the rest ; 
and it is proposed, by the discussion, to furnish the inquirer with 
certain discriminating signs, by the application of which to the 
several communities calling themselves Christian he may ascertain 
which of them have a right to that title, and which not. The 
true idea of the Church having been, in the foregoing pages, the 
subject of investigation, it is now proposed to make such observa- 
tions upon the notes and attributes of that which we have found 
to be, in its idea, a community of saints, as shall be consistent 
with the limits and scope of the present work ; the special object 
of which, it will be remembered, is to illustrate the fundamental 
differences on the subject between Romanists and Protestants. 



261 









PART J 



THE NOTES OF A CHURCH. 



With respect to the notes of a church, we are met at the thresh- 
old of the inquiry by a difference of opinion, as to what are to be 
considered proper notes ; a difference which naturally flows from 
the conception which each party entertains of the true being of the 
Church itself. The Komish formularies adopt as notes of the 
Church the properties assigned to it in the Constantinopolitan creed, 
— viz. Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity, and Apostolicity : * the Protest- 
ant insist upon the pure preaching of the Word of God and the 
right administration of the Sacraments.f This difference in the 
selection of notes is a consequence of that which exists between 
the parties as to the nature of the one holy Church, as will appear 
from the following observations. 

The Protestant is precluded from adopting the four attributes 
enumerated in the Nicene creed, as notes of the Church, by his 
fundamental position, that the Holy Catholic Church, of which the 
Creed makes mention, is at present an object of faith, and not of 
sight, or is not yet manifested in its proper corporate unity, but 
only under the form of particular churches. For a "note" is, by 
the very force of the term, something which meets the eye, some 
property or characteristic by which the subject in which it inheres 
becomes capable of recognition. Now since, according to the Pro- 



* Cat. Cone. Trid. pp. 80, 81. 

t The Anglican Confession, Art. 19. Conf. Aug. Art. 7. The Romish Theologians do not 
confine themselves to the four notes above mentioned. Thus Bellarmin (De Not. Eccles.) 
assigns fifteen notes : others of his communion fewer. Similar variations occur in Pro- 
testant writers, — e. g. Luther assigns seven notes, Field six, <fcc. But the true authentic 
Protestant notes are the puro preaching of the Word and the right administration of the 
Sacraments; as on the Romish side are the attributes enumerated in the Constantinopolitan 
creed. Bellarmin himself says of his fifteen notes; "quindecini notas proponemus quae, si 
quis velit, poterunt aliquo modo revocari ad illas quatuor quae communiter a reoentioribua 
assignantur ex symbolo Constantinopolitauo, Unam, Sanctam, Catholicam, et Apostolicam." 
— De Not. Eccl. c. 3. 
2b2 



THE NOTES OF A CHURCH. 253 

testant view, the subject of the four properties in question, is, in 
its corporate capacity, invisible, these properties, in the sense in 
which they can be truly predicated of the subject, are themselves 
invisible ; or, in other words, the true essential unity, holiness, &c. 
of the one true Church are things which do not meet the eye. True 
it is, as we shall see hereafter, that just as the body of Christ mani- 
fests itself under the form of visible churches, so to its essential attri- 
butes there belong corresponding visible manifestations ; and thus 
there is a sense in which unity, sanctity, &c., may be predicated of 
the visible Catholic church, or aggregate of Christian societies in. 
the world. But it is equally true that, as in the case of the mysti- 
cal body itself, its visible manifestation is but an imperfect and 
inadequate one, so, in the case of its attributes, the outward mani- 
festation never fully corresponds to the unseen reality, and what 
is realized always falls short of the idea. The visible unity or 
sanctity of the Church is always necessarily imperfect, and may 
be so very imperfect as not in any way to serve the purpose of a 
note. That the Church should strive to be visibly one, and visibly 
holy, is unquestionable; but it may happen that an unfortunate 
combination of circumstances shall so thwart her efforts, and render 
her visible aspect one of such disunion and unholiness, that faith alone 
can give us the assurance, as of the fact of the true church's exist- 
ence, so of the fact of her being, notwithstanding visible appear- 
ances, essentially one, and, according to the measure of holiness 
attainable in this life, essentially holy. This is actually the pre- 
sent condition of visible Christendom. So numerous and inveter- 
ate are the divisions existing among those professing the Christian 
name, that an unbeliever, looking at things from without, would 
be likely to assign, not unity, but disunion, as a note of the Church ; 
that is, as a visible token by which it may be known. The same 
may be said of the Church's visible sanctity, and to some extent 
even of the other two properties. These attributes, then, being at 
best incapable of a perfect visible manifestation, and frequently 
hardly manifested at all, the Protestant is compelled to adopt 
notes of a different nature, notes which are independent of the actual 
condition of the Christian body ; and these can be no other than 
the pure preaching of the Word and the right administration of 
the Sacraments. 

The Romanist, on the other hand, holding the mystical body of 
Christ to be a visible society under a visible head, and moreover 
His own Church, exclusive of every other, to be that society, is 
not affected by the difficulty just mentioned ; and having an ob- 



254 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



vious interest in not admitting the Word and the Sacraments to 
be sufficient notes of the Church, he adopts, as such, the predi- 
cates of the one true Church; making them, however, as has been 
before remarked, correspond in nature with the subject of which 
m they are predicates, — that is, attaching to them a merely outward 
signification. Thus, according to the Eomish catechism, the 
essential unity of the Church consists in its members acknow- 
ledging the one central jurisdiction of the Koman Pontiff; its 
sanctity in its being the repository of the means of grace; its 
Catholicity in its having the title of Catholic; and its Apos- 
tolicity in its being governed by a ministry traceable by visible 
succession up to the Apostles. It is worthy of remark that every 
theory of the Church, whether it profess to be Eomanist or not, 
which teaches that the true being thereof lies in its visible charac- 
teristics, adopts instinctively the Eomish notes, and rejects the 
Protestant ; * though it is only papal Eomanism that can legiti- 
mately and consistently do so. 

The Protestant notes, as is evident, are applicable, not to the 
mystical body of Christ, but to particular churches ; or, more 
strictly, to the primary element of every such Church, a con- 
gregation (the "cost us" of our article) under its pastors. What 
the Protestant affirms is simply this: — that wherever there is a 
professing Christian society, "in which the pure Word of God is 
preached and the Sacraments duly administered according to 
Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite 
to the same," that society has a rightful claim to the title of a true 
Church of Christ, f To advance further, and attempt to define by 
visible notes which the true Church is would be to abandon Pro- 
testant ground, and trespass upon that of the opponent. . The 
Protestant does not profess to point out who are members of the 
true Church, since, according to his view, it does not follow that, 
because a person is in communion with a visible Church, he is 
therefore a member of Christ's body : his notes have no reference 
to individuals, — no reference to the Church in its concrete aspect ; 
they merely aim at specifying, in the abstract, what is sufficient to 
make a society a true visible Church of Christ. The Protestant 
says, in general, The Church (or a part of it) is there where the 
Word and the Sacraments are ; and the society in which the one 
is preached, and the other administered, is a legitimate part of the 



* See, for example, Palmer's Treatise on the Church. Part I. c. 2. 

t Some formularies (e.g. the Scotch Confession, Art. 18.) add, the exercise of discipline. 
/ nd, indeed, this does seem to be nearly as essential as the notes specified in our article. 



THE NOTES OF A CHURCH. 255 

visible Catholic Church. The Eomanist, on the contrary, aims at 
specifying the persons who belong to the true Church ; and this 
he is enabled to do, because he defines the true Church by external 
characteristics, which appertain equally to the evil and to the good, 
— viz. profession of the Christian faith, outward participation of 
the sacraments, and communion with the Bishop of Eome. Bel- 
larmin has remarked this distinction, and grounded upon it an 
argument against the sufficiency of the Protestant notes: — 
"These notes" (the Word and the Sacraments) "are insufficient 
for their purpose ; for from them we cannot tell ivho are the elect 
and the justified ; and learn rather ichere the Church lies hid than 
which it is : " * but, as he remarks in another place, it is essential 
to the Eomish doctrine of the visibility of the mystical body of 
Christ that we should be able to point out who are the members 
of it. Why the Protestant can make no such attempt is sufficiently 
obvious. 

The true significance, however, of the Protestant notes has yet 
to be explained. It is to be observed, then, that jn one p oint of 
view they indicate the connecting link between the visible and the 
true .Church, and in another, they are opposed to the exclusive 
theory of Eome and of the Church system. A visible Church, it 
has been already remarked, owes its title of a Church to its pre- 
sumed identity with the body of Christ in that particular locality, 
and is, in fact, what it professes to be, in proportion as it becomes 
purified, by trial and persecution, from the foreign elements which 
are merely in external conjunction with it. Still these foreign 
elements are never wholly thrown off; and the question arises, 
what is it that makes a local church, notwithstanding its mixed 
condition, a true Church of Christ, in the sense in which trueness 
is predicable of a local Christian society ? This question resolves 
itself into another, — viz. wherein does the point of connexion lie 
between the visible and the true Church ; how is it that the two 
.are inseparably connected together ? Obviously, the sought-for 
point of union lies in the visible administration of those means 
of grace by which, as instruments, the Holy Spirit works, con- 
tinually replenishing the true Church with members out of the 

* "Si non scimus distincte qui sint, qui ecclosiam eonstituunt, non tain BcimtU qui 
ecclesia quam ubi pit, seu potiua ubi lateat ecclesia, quodquidem non satis est ad cccitsi<z visibUilatem 
talvandamj''— De Eccles. mil. c. 10. In the same chapter he '.veil observes, that if Romanist! 
were to admit that persons destitute of internal saving faith are not members <>f the bodj of 
Christ, there would no longer be any substantial difference between themselves and their 
opponents: — "Si ii qui fide interna carent, non sunt, n< rant, in eccles-ii, nulla 

erit inter nos et hsereticos amplius quaestio de ecclesise visibilitate." 






256 



CHURCH OF CHRIST 












visible ; and those means are, the preached Word and the Sacra- 
ments. To the visible Church, as such, it belongs to administer 
these ordinances, for whatever be the state of heart of those to 
whom the ministry of the Word and the Sacraments is committed, 
these means of grace are efficacious, not on account of the human 
channel through which they pass, but by virtue of Christ's pro- 
mise and the faith of the recipient ; and even though ministered 
by evil men "the effect of Christ's ordinance is not taken away."* 
To the visible Church, then, comprehending as it does both wheat 
and tares, the public administration of the means of grace belongs ; 
and, as it is by the instrumentality of these means that the true 
Church is gathered in, it is obvious that it is no more possible to 
sever the one from the other than it is to sever the inward grace 
of the Sacraments from the visible sign ; and that, in fact, as in 
the Sacraments the outward sign and the inward grace are not two 
sacraments, but the two aspects — the inward and the outward — 
of one and the same ordinance, so the visible and the true Church 
are not distinct communities, but one and the same, regarded from 
different points of view, t^codev and tacodev. The true Church 
depends for the maintenance of its existence upon the visible 
Church, and, in turn, the visible Church is supported by the true. 
For, as Moehler admits, if true faith were altogether to perish 
from any Christian society, that which gives it visible existence 
would speedily come to an end: the Sacraments, and the ministry 
of the Word, would be no longer frequented. Thus a reciprocal 
action is ever going on ; the visible Church, as such, dispensing 
the means of grace by which Christ works to the gathering in of 
his elect, and the true Church, as such, upholding and perpetuat- 
ing the visible use of those means by furnishing faithful recipients 
of them. In determining, therefore, the claim of any society to 
be a Church of Christ, the Protestant merely inquires whether 
the divinely appointed means of grace are there in active opera- 
tion : if so, he pronounces the society to be a true church, because 
he believes, on the strength of Christ's promise, that those means 
are never inoperative, and that where the Word and the Sacra- 
ments are duly ministered there must, in that place, be a part of 
Christ's body, comprised within, or rather manifesting itself under 
the form of, the local Christian society. In this sense only it is 
that a visible Church can be called a true Church. So far forth as 
it is a visible Church, we can affirm nothing concerning the spiri- 



• Art. xxvu 



THE NOTES OF A CHURCH. 257 

tual state of its members : what we can ascertain is, whether or 
not the Word and the Sacraments are there ministered, and the 
fact of their being so is to us warrant sufficient to pronounce it a 
true Church of Christ ; true, not in the sense in which the invisible 
Church is true, but because the true means of salvation are therein 
dispensed. 

Hence the Protestant notes, though the proper subject of their 
application is local churches, serve also, mediately, as notes of the 
true Church : they serve, as Bellarmin accurately remarks, to 
point out where it is, though not which it is. " Extra vocatorum 
coetum non sunt quserendi electi :" if there were no visible churches 
there would be no true Church. The ministry of the Word and 
the Sacraments are, on the one hand, the visible expression of the 
unseen faith which constitutes the life of the Church ; and, on the 
other, they are the instruments of the Spirit, in regenerating and 
building up those who shall be saved: as notes, therefore, they 
serve to assure us of the existence of that mystical body which, in 
itself, is an object, not of sense, but of faith; by which the charge 
brought of old against the Protestant doctrine — that its invisible 
Church is a fiction of the imagination — is abundantly refuted.* 
No other notes can give us this assurance. Visible unity, sanctity, 
&c, are neither perpetual nor indispensable conditions of the ex- 
istence of the body of Christ ; and, moreover, they are not the 
instruments, but the fruits, of the Spirit, and, like all the fruits 
of the Spirit, they may be more or less realized, --may exist in 
different degrees of perfection; and who is to decide how much 
unity or sanctity is requisite to constitute a note of the Church ? 
What is essential to the being of the true Church is, the means of 
grace, through which the members of it are called and sanctified : 
they alone, therefore, — the Word and the Sacraments — are per- 
manent, infallible notes of its existence, f 

Besides indicating the point of connexion between the visible 
church, as such, and the true Church, and serving as landmarks to 
teach us where the true Church is, the Protestant notes contain an 
implicit protest against the doctrine, whether Eomish or Cyprianic, 
which makes any form of polity essential to the idea of a true 
visible church. For they implicitly affirm that every society in 

* "Appellatio ecclesiae iovifibilia valdc exosa est Pontificiis: Eceius hanc vocabuli accep- 
tionem ridet, et (licit esse 'eccletiam mathematicam,' ct 'ideas Platonicas.' Alii vocant 
'stigmaticam, utopicam, imaginariam eccleriam.'" Gerhard, loc. xxiii. c. 7. 

t " Quibus ecclesia constitutor, oongregatur, alitur, et conservatur, illao sunt propria, 
genuinae et infallibiles notse ecclesUe. Sod rerbo Dei, et usu Sacranieutorum, ecclesia 
constituitur, alitur," Ac. — Gerhard, loc. xxiii. e. 10. 

17 





1 








































258 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



which the Word and the Sacraments are purely ministered has for 
that reason — whatever other visible features it may present — 
a right to the title of a true church. Agreement in these two 
essential points gives the society a claim to be admitted to the 
fellowship of the churches of Christ. The reason why it does so 
is, on Protestant principles, obvious. Since the visible churches 
of Christ — otherwise distinct communities — are one, by reason 
of their common connexion with the body of Christ, which alone 
is truly one, every society, which we may presume to be a mani- 
festation of Christ's body, must also be regarded as essentially 
connected with all the other churches of Christ : but wherever the 
pure Word and the Sacraments are ministered, there we have 
reason to believe there is a part of Christ's body. Every society, 
therefore, which exhibits these two notes, is a legitimate member 
of the visible church Catholic, and should be recognized by the 
other members as such ; because, whatever other discrepancies it 
may exhibit, it contains that in it which makes it substantially 
one with the other members of the Christian commonwealth ; or, 
to express the same thing otherwise, the fundamental requirements 
of visible unity among the churches of Christ are satisfied by the 
visible exercise in each of them of those means — viz. the AYord 
and the Sacraments — which the Holy Ghost employs to call into 
being, and to edify, the members of the one true church of God. 
That this is one chief point which the Protestant notes are intended 
to express, may be inferred from the statements of the Augsburg 
Confession, which, after defining a church to be " a congregation 
of saints, in which the Gospel is preached, and the Sacraments 
duly administered," adds, "for the true unity of the Church" (£. e. 
visible churches) " it is sufficient that there be an agreement con- 
cerning the doctrine of the Gospel, and the administration of the 
Sacraments ; nor is it necessary that traditions, rites, or ceremonies 
of human origin should be everywhere the same." * 

Thevobjections which are urged by Eomanists against the Pro 
testant notes — as that every sect, however heretical, lays claim to 
purity of doctrine ; or that the true notes of the Church should 
be inseparable from it; whereas purity of doctrine is not so, as 
we learn from the cases of the Galatian and Corinthian churches, 
which were true churches of Christ, and yet were affected with 
serious doctrinal errors ;f — are, for the most part, such as sug 



Conf. Aug. Art. 7. See also Thirty-nine Articles, Art. 29. 
Bellarmin. De Not. Eccles. c. 2. 



THE NOTES OF A CHURCH. 259 

gest their own answer. It does not follow that because heretical 
sects profess to teach the pure Word of God, they actually do so, 
much less that no one can tell what the true doctrine of the 
Gospel is : the existence of counterfeit coins does not prove that 
there is no genuine money in circulation, or deprive us of the 
power of discriminating between the two. Indeed, we may retort 
the argument upon the Eomanist, and fairly urge that, inasmuch 
as heretical sects, however they may differ in other respects, are 
all found professing to teach the pure Word of God, this last 
must be a note of a true church, otherwise these sects would not 
be so anxious to establish their claim to the distinction; just as 
the circulation of counterfeit coins proves that the genuine coin 
of the realm possesses the value commonly ascribed to it. As to 
the argument drawn from the Corinthian and Galatian churches, 
it is to be observed that, as regards the preaching of the Word, 
and consequently the churches in which it is preached, there are 
various degrees of purity ; and that not every error in doctrine 
disentitles the society which maintains it to be considered a true 
Church. In truth, "the pure Word of God" is an abstract ideal, 
by their approximation to which churches must be estimated. If 
the preaching of the Word altogether ceases, there no longer 
exists a visible Church at all; if error in fundamentals is taught, 
the society ceases to be a true Church; and if fundamental truth 
be preached but with an admixture of error, the Church is a true, 
though not a perfectly pure, one; the degree of its impurity 
depending upon the number and nature of the errors with which 
it is affected. As regards the particular instances adduced, it was 
not the church of Corinth as a Church, but certain members of it, 
that denied the doctrine of the resurrection ("How say some 
among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ? " i Cor. xv. 
12.); while the Galatians, though in imminent danger of being 
corrupted from the simplicity of the Gospel, still retained hold of 
foe fundamental truths of Christianity, and were susceptible 
of apostolic correction. The further question may, indeed, be 
asked, What truths in Christianity are to be considered funda- 
mental, and what not? but this point bein'g supposed to be settled, 
that society which pn I ruth in fundamentals exhibits one of 

the notes of a true Church. Upon the subject of fundamentals 
some remarks will hereafter be offered. 

But does not the Protestant, in making purity of doctrine a 
note of the Church, fall into the logical error of petitio principii ? 
Does he not assume that to be known which it is the very purpose 
































260 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



of the inquiry to discover? "The true Church, indeed, possesses 
the genuine Word of the Gospel, and the sacraments, which con- 
stitute its life. Nevertheless, when it comes to a strife of different 
parties, the true Church of Christ cannot, by these notes, be 
distinguished. For this is the alternative placed before us ; — we 
must either, from the fact that he who preaches is a true saint, 
conclude that his doctrine is pure, or, from the circumstance that 
his doctrine is pure, conclude that he is a living member of the 
Church. The first is impossible, for none but God knows who 
are truly sanctified by His Spirit ; the second presupposes that he 
whom we conceive to be inquiring after the true doctrine of Christ 
is already acquainted with it ; in which case the inquiry is super- 
fluous. We inquire which is the true Church, because we would 
ascertain what is the true doctrine of Christ, and be sure that we 
possess it ; but if we are told, by way of answer, that there the 
true Church is where true doctrine is preached, the answer mani- 
festly is nothing but the question itself; that is, it is no real 
answer at all. " * So reasons Moehler, and Bellarmin before him. 
The objection which these Writers take against the Protestant 
notes amounts to this : in making the pure Word of God a note 
of the Church, Protestants forget that he who knows what the 
pure doctrine of Christ is must already know which the true 
Church is; for it is from the true Church that he must have 
received his knowledge of the true doctrine. There is a degree 
of plausibility in this argument which makes it the more neces- 
sary to point out the fallacy upon which it rests ; but before we 
proceed to do so, it may be worth while to point out how that 
fundamental error of Eomanism, which makes union with the 
Church not the consequence, but the cause, of union with Christ, 
is here operative. The inquirer is supposed to be seeking for the 
true Church, not because, being in possession of saving truth and 
faith, he seeks to join himself to the company of the faithful, but 
because it is through the Church (t. e. by visible union with it) 
that he expects to attain to Christ. He is supposed to be, at first, 
altogether outside the circle of Christian faith and feeling, and to 
proceed from this external point of view to examine which of the 
contending parties is the true Church. Of course, on this suppo- 
sition, it would be absurd to tell him that that is a true Church 
where the pure Word and the Sacraments are ministered; for 



• Symbolik. p. 420. "Notse dobent notiorcs oa re, cujus sunt notso, alioquin enim non 
Hunt notae. Jam sine dubio notius est, quae sit vera ecclesia, quam quae sit vera prwdicati'* 
vcrbi: nam id ab ecclesia discimus." — Bellarm. de Not. Eccles. c. 2. 



THE NOTES OF A CHURCH. 261 

what the pure Word is, and what constitutes the rightful adminis- 
tration of the Sacraments, he, by the supposition, knows not. 
But how unlikely is the case ever to occur. What interest can 
an unbeliever, as such, or a person indifferent to religion, be sup- 
posed to have in discussing the question, Which is the true 
Church? If ever such a person is brought to a sense of religion, 
his first inquiry, we may be sure, will be, not Which is the true 
Church ? but, " What must I do to be saved ? " — a concern for 
his own personal salvation will take precedence of everything 
else. Not until he has himself tasted the good Word of God, and 
the powers of the world to come, can he be supposed to feel the 
slightest interest in investigating the ecclesiastical pretensions of 
this or that society of professing Christians. The case of an un- 
believer deliberately engaging, before his conversion, in such an 
inquiry as this, is one which probably never has occurred. The 
Protestant notes, on the contrary, are framed on the supposition 
that the inquirer is capable of discriminating between what is, 
and what is not, the pure doctrine of Christ : he is presumed to 
be a believer in Christ, to know the voice of the great Shepherd, 
and, knowing it, to inquire where the resting place of the flock is. 
If, as Scripture declares, personal union with Christ by faith pre- 
cedes union with the visible Church, or any desire for such union, 
it is obvious that the inquirer after the true Church must be sup- 
posed to have the criteria of trueness in himself, — that is, to 
know what is the true Word of God. But does the Protestant, 
in maintaining this, argue in a vicious circle ? Far from it ; as 
we shall now endeavour to point out. 

The fallacy of the Romish argument is connected with the ambi- 
guity of the statement, that it is from the true Church that men 
derive their knowledge of true doctrine; which is true in one 
sense, and not in another. It is not true that the Church is the 
ultimate source of our knowledge of divine truth, or that we hold 
a doctrine to be a part of the Word of God, because the Church 
pronounces it to be so: the only authoritative source of divine 
truth is Holy Scripture. Yet it is true that, ordinarily, we become 
acquainted with the inspired volume itself, and with what Christ- 
ians hold to be the subject matter of its revelation, through the 
intervention of the Church ; for it is to the Church that the min- 
istry of the Word, and the custody of the Scriptures, arc commit- 
ted. By taking care to make this distinction between what are, 
and what are not, the legitimate functions of the Church in hand 
ing down the deposit of divine truth, the whole difficulty connected 
































262 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 












with the Protestant notes will be found to disappear. We receive 
the Christian Scriptures, the ultimate standard of divine truth, 
from the Christian Church only in the same sense in which the Christ- 
ian Church itself received the Old Testament Scriptures from the 
Jews. The Jews were in their day witnesses and keepers of holy 
writ; witnesses to its divine origin, and keepers of it as a sacred 
deposit, to be preserved from addition, mutilation, and corruption : 
a trust which they discharged with singular fidelity, but which, 
as every one must perceive, by no means implied authority on 
their part to deliver either a new revelation or an inspired inter- 
pretation of the existing one. What the Old Testament taught 
was to be gathered from itself, not from the opinions of its human 
guardians. In the same relation precisely does the Church of 
Christ now stand to the completed volume of inspiration. She is 
its witness and keeper ; but her office is ministerial, not authorita- 
tive ; she witnesses to the fact of the Scriptures being the Word of 
God, but, far from having authority to deliver an infallible inter- 
pretation of it, she is herself bound to submit to its authoritative 
declarations. She calls upon men to believe upon that Saviour upon 
whom she herself believes ; she instructs them in what she holds 
to be the Christian faith ; and she presents them with that inspired 
volume which she receives as the Word of God : but further than 
this her office does not extend. Hence there is nothing contra- 
dictory in the supposition that the Church may be the instrument of 
our becoming acquainted with the Gospel, and supply the necessary 
materials — the external criteria — for our arriving at the conclu- 
sion that Scripture is the Word of God, and yet herself be bound 
to submit her pretensions to purit} r to the touchstone of Scripture. 
It is quite possible for a Church to be a faithful witness and keeper 
of holy writ, and yet to be convicted, the moment the volume is 
opened and perused, of the most serious corruptions in doctrine 
and practice : just as the Jews faithfully and scrupulously preserved 
their Scriptures, but preserved them to their own shame and con- 
demnation. It is conceivable that the Church of Eome, for exam- 
ple, may, by the preaching of the fundamental truths of the Gos- 
pel which she still retains, be the instrument of converting a hea- 
then community to the faith of Christ, and yet that her converts, 
supposing them to be permitted access to the inspired Word, shall, 
from the study of that Word, become convinced that the teaching 
of their spiritual mother is, in many points, widely different from 
the pure doctrine of Christ. There is, therefore, no real foundation 
for the charge that Protestants, in making the pure preaching of 



THE NOTES OF A CHURCH. 263 

the Word one of the notes of the Church, argue in a circle. Every 
Christian receives the knowledge of the truth from some Christian 
society, but not in such a sense as precludes him from examining 
the pretensions to purity of the very community from which he 
has received it : and such a knowledge of the truth he must be 
supposed to have before the question can occur to him, which is, 
and which is not, a true Church ? For, as Gerhard well remarks, 
the whole controversy concerning the notes of the Church is one, 
not between Christians and infidels, but between those who, 
acknowledging the inspiration of Scripture, and professing faith 
in Christ, are in doubt which, among various societies calling 
themselves Christian, have a right to that title. * 

The foregoing observations are intended to explain the positive 
ground upon which the validity of the Protestant notes rests : it 
may be added, however, that whatever be the force of the objec- 
tion just mentioned, as urged by the Eomanist, it may be retorted 
with exactly the same force against his own notes. For if it be 
illogical in the Protestant to pre-suppose in the inquirer a know- 
ledge of what the pure doctrine of Christ is, it is equally so in the 
Romanist to presuppose in him a knowledge of the idea of the 
true Church : but this he is compelled to do. The inquirer is 
directed to examine which of several professing Christian com- 
munities exhibits most clearly the notes of visible unity, sanctity, 
&c. ; obviously, it is here assumed that he has, from some quarter 
or other, convinced himself that these are the true notes of the 
Church ; that is, that he already possesses the true idea of the 
Church. Whence has he acquired this knowledge? Not from 
Scripture, for this brings us back to Protestant ground : not from 
the Church, for which the true Church is he is not supposed to 
know : what third source of knowledge remains it is difficult to 
tell. The fact is, that, on either side, something must be, and is 
presupposed, as a first principle, to serve as a criterion of truth : 
the only difference is that, while with the Protestant this <%>?, or 
first principle, is a knowledge of divine truth gathered ultimately 
from Scripture, with the Romanist it is a knowledge of what the 
true Church is, gathered we know not whence. If it be said, that 

* "Monendumillud nos hoc loco de talibus noti8 agere, quae proprie et immediate ab illis 
attendendao sunt qui in ecclesia Christiana versantur et ambigunt. quinam Christianorum 
coetus sint vera, sincera, et incorrupta ecclesia, hoc est, qui admittunt Scripturas. Quod 
eniin Gentiles attinet qui Scripturarum Sacrarum auctoritatem non admittunt, illis ex tcsti- 
monio ecclesiae, et Kpirriptoig internis, Scripturas Sacra? auctoritas prius demonstranda est, 
antequam ex doctrina, hoc est, ex congruentia doctrinae cum ScripturLs Sanctis do ecclesia 
sincera et incorrupta judicare posaint." — Loc. xxiii. c. 10. 



264 



CHUKCH OF CHRIST, 



the true idea of the Church is to be learned from the Church, we 
reply, borrowing Moehler's own words, "We inquire what the 
notes of the Church are, because we would ascertain which the 
true Church is, with the view of learning from it the doctrine of 
Christ : if now we are told that the true notes of the Church are 
what the true Church pronounces to be such, the answer is mani- 
festly nothing but the question itself: that is, it is no real answer 
at all. 



PART II. 

THE ATTRIBUTES, OR PREDICATES, OF THE CHURCH. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

According to Protestant views, the attributes of unity, sanctity, 
and catholicity, belong, in their highest signification, only to the 
true Church, or mystical body of Christ, and cannot be predicated, 
except in a modified sense, of the visible church. Still, the latter, 
as being the manifestation of the former, possesses a relative and 
imperfect unity, sanctity, and catholicity; for every inward pro- 
perty of the true Church strives, like that Church itself, after a 
corresponding visible expression of itself, and, to a certain extent, 
succeeds in attaining thereto. Hence, in discussing this part of 
the subject, it will be convenient to consider each of the properties 
in question; first, as it inheres in its proper subject — the true 
Church, — and then as it expresses itself visibly in the aggregate 
of particular societies which make up the visible Church. The 
fourth property which the Constantinopolitan creed assigns — viz. 
apostolicity — does not here fall under consideration; for there are 
only two senses in which a Church can be said to be an apostolic 
one, — either as holding and teaching apostolic doctrine, in which 
point of view apostolicity is identical with the pure preaching of 
the Word, and becomes a note of local churches ; or as possessing 
a ministry derived from the Apostles, in whatever manner such 
derivation may be supposed to have proceeded, and the questions 
relating to the Christian ministry are reserved for discussion in a 
subsequent part of this work. 

Previously, however, to entering upon the inquiry, a few words 
will be necessary on the origin and import of these terms which, 
as expressing essential properties of the Church, have passed into 
the Creeds. Two only of them — Unity and Sanctity — are 
derived directly from Scripture ; unless indeed we may trace the 
term "Apostolical" to Ephes. ii. 20., where St. Paul describes 
Christians as being built upon "the foundation of the apostles and 
prophets." The unity of the Church is set forth in the well-known 
passage of the same epistle: — "There is one body and one spirit, 
even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one 
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all " (c. iv. 4 — 0.) ; and 
its sanctity in a subsequent passage: — "Christ loved the Church, 

2)3 





















266 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



and gave Himself for it, that He might cleanse it with the wash- 
ing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a 
glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ; 
but that it should be holy and without blemish" (c. v. 26, 27.). 
The predicate " Catholic," on the contrary, is, as is well known, 
one which came into use subsequently to the apostolic age: it is 
a complex term, comprising several ideas, which it may be well to 
explain more distinctly. 

In modern ecclesiastical language, Catholic means universal ; 
and by the catholicity of the Church is commonly understood its 
capability of universal diffusion, as contrasted with the Jewish 
religion, which was confined to one people and one country. But 
this was not the only (indeed it may be doubted whether it was 
the primary) meaning of the word when first it came into use : 
the original idea intended to be conveyed by it seems to have been 
that of organic unity, or the idea of a whole (olov) composed of 
various parts, which have no proper existence independently of 
that of which they are parts ; as, for example, the human body, 
which is not a mere aggregate of similar or different members, but 
an organised totality.* It was not, therefore, so much in oppo- 
sition to Judaism as to heresy — the principle of division — that 
the Church first received the title of Catholic; as we may gather 
from one of the earliest examples, if not the very earliest, of the 
use of the word, — that occurring in the epistle of Ignatius to the 
Smyrnaeanas: "Wheresoever the Bishop shall be seen, there let 
the people also be ; as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic 
church." The parallelism here drawn shows what Ignatius meant 
by Catholic. With him, as every reader of his epistles is aware, 
the Bishop is, in each particular church, the representative and 
organ of Christ, — the visible centre of unity to all the believers 
of that locality; apart from whom (with his presbyters and dea- 
cons) a church has no proper existence, f This view of the epis- 
copal office he illustrates by a reference to the relation existing 
between Christ and the Catholic church : his conception, therefore, 
of the latter must have been 'that of an organised body under 
Christ its head and centre of unity: and this, apparently, is what 
he intends to express by the word Catholic. \ But however this 

*"OXoj is distinguished from anas, as totus is from omnis in Latin, or "the whole" from 
'"all" in English. The "whole army" conveys to the mind a different idea from "all the 
men of the army:" in the former case, the men comprising the army are viewed as a body 
united under a head; in the latter as a collection of individuals. 

fXwpif rovnov £KK\r)<ria. ou KaXurai. — Ad. Trail. 

+ This passage of Ignatius may be cited as an instance of the embarrassments attending 
all theories of the one true Church, which make it a visibly organized body, and yet reject 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 267 

may be, it is certain that in later writers the Church is called 
Catholic, quite as much to distinguish it from sects as to express 
its universality. Three distinct notions were thus comprised 
under the predicate Catholic in its original acceptation: unity, 
strictly so called, or the connexion of the members of Christ's 
bod}' with the Head and with each other; oneness — i. e. exclu- 
sive aess — as distinguished from unity, for obviously there cannot 
be two Catholic or universal churches ; * and Universality, or 
Catholicity in its ordinary sense. All these are inseparable pro- 
perties of the Church : there is one body animated by one spirit ; 
there is only one such body ; and this body is, or may be, uni- 
saUy diffused. Thus, excluding apostolicity, there still remain 
for consideration four distinct attributes of the body of Christ ; — 
Unity, Oneness, Sanctity, and Universality. Of these, however, 
only the first three furnish matter for illustrating the differences 
between Protestants and Eomanists, since the universality of the 
Church is acknowledged by both parties, and in the same sense ; 
the Protestant confessions being careful to disavow any affinity of 
sentiment with the Donatists, who held that the Catholic church, 
having disappeared from the rest of the world, was confined to 
their own sect, f Hence Bellarmin, in making Catholicity a note 
of the Church, is driven to insist, not upon the thing itself, but 
upon the name of Catholic, which he endeavours to appropriate 
exclusively to his own communion. The remaining three attri- 
butes we now proceed to discuss, in the order above mentioned. 

the doctrine of the Roman Pontiff. The Protestant, understanding by the Catholic Church 
the mystical body of Christ, fully goes along with the assertion, "where Christ is, there is 
the Catholic Church," which is nothing more than saying, that where the head is there 
is the body. But the Catholic Church of Ignatius was, as appears from his comparing it 
with a visible local church under its bishop, one visible society, — the visible union of all 
Christians; and the question immediately arose, where was he to find a visible centre of 
unity standing in the same relation to the whole Church in which the bishop did to each 
local church? In the time of Ignatius, no such visible head existed, for the church system 
had not yet become developed into the Papacy: hence, instead of the Romen Pontiff, he 
makes Christ himself such a centre of unity: to the obvious damage, however, ol the theory, 
for with a spiritual invisible head a visible and therefore mixed body is not susceptible of 
combination. See MoehJer's observations upon this passage in his work, Einhcit in dcr 
Kirche, p. 265. 

* This is what the Fathers usually mean by unitas ecclesia—e. g. the* subject of Cyprian s 
tract Dt Unitaie Ecclesia is not the internal unity of the church, but its excltWYttieffS — the 
oneness of the Church. On the other hand, the work of Augustin which boars tlio same 
title as that of Cyprian is in reality neither upon the unity nor the oneness, but u]K>n the 
catholicity, of the Cburcli. "Qtt&stio certe inter nos versatur, Ubi est ecclesia, utnini aptnl 
nos an apud illos (Donatistas)? Quae utique vera est, quam majores nostri Catholiann muni- 
narunt."— Aug. do Unit, Eccles. s. 2. This shows how closely these three attributes were, 
in the minds of the Fathers, associated together. 

f ''Daranamu6 ergo Donatistas qui ecclesiain in nescio quos Africae coarctabant angulos." 
-1 Conf. Hel. c. 17. 





















268 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



CHAPTEE I 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 

The unity of the Church is a phrase which admits of a variety 
of interpretations, j Sometimes, as has been already remarked, it 
is used to express what should be more properly called iha_one- 
ness of the Church ; sometimes the points in which visible churches 
agree; and sometimes, again, it signifies not the doctrine or the 
fact of the unity of the Church, but the duty of Christians to cul- 
tivate a spirit of union and brotherly love. With this latter 
meaning of the phrase we have here no concern ; for in this sense 
it denotes not a permanent attribute of the Church, but a desir- 
able object which Christians should constantly keep in view: 
whereas, whatever be the amount of unanimity actually attained 
among Christians, be it more or be it less, the fact of the unity of 
the Church remains unaltered ; Scripture affirming, not that there 
ought to be, but that "there is, one body and one spirit," that 
" we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members 
one of another," that " as the body is one and hath many mem- 
bers, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one 
body, so also is Christ," — i. e. Christ and His Church. * To avoid 
ambiguity, then, it will be proper to state that by the unity of the 
Church is here meant its organic unity, whether this be internal 
or external, or both : what we are now concerned with is the mode 
in which the Church is one body under one head, for this is the 
proper notion of organic unity, as distinguished from uniformity 
which may exist among several distinct things. 

St. Paul, in Ephes. iv. 4 — 6., not only asserts the general fact that 
"there is one body and one spirit," grounding thereupon an ex- 
hortation to Christian unanimity, but also enumerates the various 
aspects in which the Church maybe said to be one: — "Ye are 
called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one bap- 
tism, one God and Father of all;" which, from the formal manner 
in which they are stated, would seem to be, whatever they may 



* Rom. xii. 5.; 1 Cor. xii. 12. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 269 

mean, the fundamental principles of unity which belong to the 
Church of Christ. It is evident, however, that the true organic 
unity of the Church is comprised in the first words of the apostle, 
— " there is one body and one spirit;" the first clause expressing 
the actual connexion of Christians with their glorified Head, the 
second the internal principle of life which unites them to the head 
and to each other. The other unities mentioned by the apostle — 
one faith, one hope, one Lord, one baptism — are rather conse- 
quences or concomitants than formal causes of this organic unity : 
they express the principal particulars in which the essential unity 
of the Church, which, as a fact, must be presupposed, manifests 
itself ; for the Church must be constituted in Christ — must exist 
as one body animated by one spirit — before she can realize to 
herself the fact that she has one faith, one hope, &c. So in the 
human body, which in Scripture is the ordinary figure by which 
the constitution of the Church is illustrated, the body must have 
a living existence before the essential unity which pervades all 
the members of it, however different in function, becomes a matter 
capable of being reflected upon. Bellarmin's remarks upon this 
point are very just: — "The unity of the Church," he observes, 
"is manifold, as firstly, the unity of efficient cause, viz. Cod's 
calling ; secondly, the unity of scope or final end, viz. eternal sal- 
vation ; thirdly, the unity of means, that is, faith, the sacraments, 
and the ordinances ; fourthly, the unity of the Spirit by whom 
(ut externa et separate* rectore) the whole Church is governed; 
fifthly, the unity of the same head, viz. Christ and his vicar the 
Roman Pontiff; and sixthly, the unity which consists in the con- 
nexion of the members with each other and with the head. Of 
these unities, those which properly make the Church one are the 
two last, viz. the subordination of the members to one head, and 
their union with each other."* 

Protestants hold that organic unity belongs only to the mystical 
body of Christ. It is this only that can in any proper sense of the 
word be said to be one society under one head. And of this it 
can be said that it is so. Every member of it is a living branch 
of the true vine, vitally incorporated in Christ. Christ himself is 
its centre of unity. The society is under the government of the 
spirit of Christ. The law which it obeys is the law of God written 
upon the hearts of its members. That the body is a spiritual one, 

* De Ecclcs. 1. iii. c. 5. With respect to the other unities he remarks: — "per primam 
ecclcsia non tam est una quamex uno; per secundam non tarn est una quaua ad unum; per 
tertiaui, non tam est una quam per unum; per quartam, non tain est una qua in .sub uno." 



270 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 




and at present, as a body, invisible, makes nothing against the fact 
of its existence but for it, for it is only a body of this kind that 
could belong to a spiritual and invisible head. 

That Scripture speaks of the Church as in this sense one, too 
frequently and emphatically to allow us to explain away its state- 
ments, has been already observed, and the remarks before made 
need not here be repeated. It may be added, however, that the 
essentially spiritual nature of the body is apparent from the fact 
that the "dead in Christ," the disembodied "spirits of just men 
made perfect," are members of it equally with the saints upon 
earth : from which it follows that no visible manifestation of it, in 
its proper corporate unity, is possible before the day of Christ. 

Eomanism recognizes the doctrine of this organic unity of the 
Church, and endeavours in the tridentine system to give it an 
adequate expression: only, by transferring it from its proper 
subject, the mystical body of Christ, to a visible society, that is, 
by carnalizing the idea of the Church, that system transforms the 
true spiritual unity of Christ's body into an outward political one. 
The unity of the Papacy is, it must be allowed, a real organic 
unity, and presents the same resemblance to the true doctrine of 
Scripture upon the subject, which a counterfeit coin does to a real 
one. The Papal unity is, as Bellarmin candidly admits, that of a 
secular monarchy. Under a visible head and centre of unity are 
arranged in a long descending series the different ecclesiastical 
orders, corresponding to the officers of state in a political commu- 
nity ; — an hierarchy, resembling, in the language of the Council 
of Trent, the orderly array of an army;* while the "plebs," or 
common people, as they are significantly called, compose the base 
of the pyramid, the whole presenting one of the most skilfully 
adjusted, and (in a worldly point of view) admirable, polities which 
the world has ever seen. It is this imposing aspect of unity, this 
true organic combination of parts, presented by the Church of 
*Kome, that has attracted to her pale so many persons of ardent 
mind, who, setting out from the position that the body of Christ 
is a visible corporation, have looked in vain in other systems for 
any thing answering to such an idea. 

For, in truth, of all those theories of the Church which make 
its essence to lie in its external characteristics, that of Trent is 
alone consistent with itself, alone has any pretension to complete- 



* " Ecclesiasticam hierarchiam quae est ut eastrorum acies ordinata.' 
23. c. 4. 



Cono. Trid. sess. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 271 

ness. This is strikingly apparent in the point now under discus- 
sion. When the Cyprianist, for example, who limits the essential, 
because divine, element of Church polity to the episcopal regimen, 
regarding the higher forms of organization as of human origin, is 
pressed to state his view of the organic unity of the Church, all 
that he can present us with is an aggregate of distinct and inde- 
pendent communities, connected merely by a similarity of govern- 
ment; which is by no means an adequate representation of the 
Scriptural doctrine respecting the body of Christ. As the profes- 
sion of one faith, one hope, and the practice of one baptism, do 
not, of themselves, make the visible Churches which agree in these 
points, in any proper sense, one society, so neither does mere 
sameness of government, whether episcopal or any other. When 
Cyprian speaks of the "one episcopate of which each member has 
an undivided share," his language indeed plainly shows the point 
to which things were tending, viz. the establishment of a visible 
centre and representative of the united episcopate (even in Cyprian's 
own works the rudiments of such a visible centre are discernible); 
but his theory, taking it by itself, is plainly insufficient to express 
the organic unity of the Church. According to that theory, each 
bishop is a monarch in his own sphere, owing no submission to 
any other bishop ; whence it follows that the whole episcopate is 
nothing but an aggregate of these monarchies, without a central 
government: which is no organic unity. It seems difficult to 
refuse assent to the following observations of one, who at one time 
was a zealous maintainer of Cyprian's doctrine of unity, but who 
subsequently became sensible of its incompleteness, except when 
viewed as a stage of transition to the Papacy : — "It may be possi- 
bly suggested that this universality which the fathers ascribe to the 
Catholic Church lay in its apostolical descent, or again in its epis- 
copacy ; and that it was one, not as being one kingdom, or civitas, 
'at unity with itself,' with one and the same intelligence in every 
.part, one sympathy, one ruling principle, one organization, one 
communion, but because, though consisting of a number of inde- 
pendent communities at variance (if so be) with each other even to 
a breach of communion ; nevertheless all these were possessed of a 
legitimate succession of clergy, or all governed by bishops, 
priests, and deacons. But who will in seriousness maintain that 
relationship, or that resemblance, makes two bodies one ? England 
and Prussia are both monarchies ; are they, therefore, one k i ng< I< >m ? 
England and the United States are from one stock ; can they, there- 
fore, be called one state? England and Ireland are peopled by 









272 church of cheist. 



different races; yet are they not one kingdom still? If unity lies 
in the Apostolical succession, an act of schism is, from the nature 
of the case, impossible ; for as no one can reverse his parentage, so 
no Church can undo the fact that its clergy have come by lineal 
descent from the Apostles. Either there is no such sin as schism, 
or unity does not lie in the episcopal form, or in episcopal ordina- 
tion." * To which may be added another striking passage, bearing 
on the same point, from Moehler's book, "the Unity of the Church : " 
— " Whether the Papacy is to be considered as one of the distin- 
guishing characteristics of the Catholic Church was long doubtful 
to me ; nay, I had taken up the contrary opinion : for the organic 
combination of all the parts into one whole, which the idea of the 









Catholic Church absolutely requires, seemed fully attained by the 
unity of the episcopate, as that unity has just been explained ; and 
besides, it is manifest that the history of the first three centuries 
contains very few materials for settling the question of the supre- 
macy of the bishop of Rome decisively. But a more comprehen- 
sive, and deeper, consideration of the scriptural notices of Peter, 
and of history, together with a lively insight into the organization 
of the Church, conducted me . at length irresistibly to the doctrine 
of the Papacy. The historical construction of the idea of the pri- 
macy, as it unfolded itself to my mind, was as follows : — That to 
stop at the point of progress hitherto attained (viz. the gradual con- 
solidation of the episcopate) would be to leave the development of 
the unity of the Church incomplete, is evident at first sight. There 
is wanting to the chain one link, to the building its topstone. If 
in every perfect organization, such as the universe, the particular 
component parts are themselves in their turn organic, so that in 
each member the type of the whole is visible, and vice versa, the 
energy that animates the whole reproduces in each particular part 
the characteristic form of that whole ; if this be so, as it is, then it 
is evident that if the organization of the Church be arrested at the 
point at which we have now arrived, viz. the episcopate, as if at 
that point it is to be considered as complete, the ascending series 
will be suddenly broken off, and the energy that moulds the whole 
so debilitated as not to be able to perfect the whole work after the 
proposed type. In the diocese we found the bishop to be the cen- 
tral point of unity ; in a wider circle the metropolitan, as the cen- 

* Newman on Development, p. 258. De Maistre has expressed the same thought mora 
concisely: "Soutenir qu'unc foule d'Eglises independantes forment une Sglise utu tl univer- 
selle, c'est soutenir, en d'autres termes, que tous les gouvernements politiques de l'Europe 
ne forment qu'un seul gouvernement vii r.t universel." Du Pape, 1. i. c. 1. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 273 

tre of a certain number of bishops : next came the unity of all the 
bishops (the C yprianic theory) ; but of this latter unity we have as 
yet discovered no living personal representative." * &c. And then 
he goes on to show that in the bishop of Rome the required visible 
centre of unity is found. The passage is valuable, as illustrating 
the course of thought by which, the patristic theory of the Church 
being taken as a starting-point, the idea of the Papacy arose in 
men's minds, and was at length worked out. The mere intercom- 
munion of distinct episcopal Churches is not, it must be repeated, 
any more than the intercommunion of presbyterian Churches, a 
true organic unity ; and certainly it does not satisfy the statements 
of Scripture concerning the unity of Christ's mystical body. 

It need hardly be remarked, that much less does the existence 
of certain common principles of unity among different Churches 
make them one body under one head. There is of course a sense 
in which the aggregate of visible Christian societies may be called 
one Church : they profess, as Pearson observes, the same faith, 
they celebrate the same sacraments, they acknowledge one Lord 
Jesus Christ : in this sense there is a visible Catholic Church. But 
it is obvious that a unity of this kind is nothing higher than that 
which subsists between the monarchical states of Europe, which 
agree in being founded on the same principle of government, but 
are otherwise distinct communities, acknowledging no common 
head upon earth. Similarly, there is a sense in which Christ may 
be called the Head of this visible Catholic Church. He is so, not 
immediately and by direct union, but on account of the insepara- 
ble connexion between the visible and the true Church, the mem- 
bers of the latter being not to be looked for outside the pale of the 
former. Churches acknowlege Christ as their Lord and Head, but 
as such they are not in vital union with Him: this can only be 
predicated of the individual members of such Churches, and not 
of all the members of them. If the visible and the true Church 
were, as regards their members, perfectly co-extensive, Christ 
would be the Head of either of them indifferently in the same 
sense ; as it is, it is only improperly, and mediately, that He is 
the Head of the former; He is the Head of it because it compre- 
hends the latter, of which He is truly the Head. 

In short, between the doctrine of Trent and the Protestantism 
of the Reformation, there would seem to be, as regards the point 
in question, no tenable via media. If organic unity be predicable 

* Einheit in der Kirche, p. 237. 
18 






i74 



CHURCH OF CHRIST 



of the Church, if it must necessarily, and under all circumstances, 
exist as one body under one head, it must be acknowledged that 
the tridentine system alone presents a visible representation cor 
responding to such an idea. 

Little need be said concerning the secondary unities mentioned 
by St. Paul : " one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one 
baptism, one God and Father of all ;" which, it has been remarked, 
are consequences of the spiritual constitution of the Church in 
union with its glorified Head. These are the points in which the 
Church is consciously one ; and, like the organic unity itself, they 
belong in their true and proper signification only to the mystical 
body of Christ. For the immediate reference of St. Paul's expres- 
sions is, not to the agreement of Churches, but of Christians with 
each other ; not therefore to the mere profession of one faith,* one 
Lord, &c, but to the internal facts of the spiritual life, all of which 
are comprised in these unities. All the true members of Christ's 
body have one Lord, Christ in them the hope of glory ; one saving 
faith in that Lord, consisting in their conscious dependence upon 
Him for every spiritual blessing ; one baptism or regeneration, for 
such in truth is the spiritual import of that sacrament ; and in 
consequence of this regeneration one God and Father of all. It is 
evident that the Apostle's meaning is, not that all true Christians 
express their faith in the same words, or administer baptism with 
precisely the same circumstantials, but that whether they do this 
or not, they have but one faith, one Lord, one baptism. In another 
aspect, however, these fundamental points of union become visible 
principles of unity, both between Christians individually consid- 
ered and between Churches. They serve this purpose as soon as 
the faith which the Church at first holds implicitly comes, from 
whatever cause, to be reflected upon and analysed, or is transferred 
from the sphere of immediate consciousness to that of the under- 
standing, and becomes expressed in creeds and formularies. In 
this sense we speak of individuals, or Churches, professing the 
same faith, acknowledging one Lord, &c. Such professions of 
Christian faith, together with the two sacraments, constitute bonds 
of union among local Churches, which remain indeed distinct 
societies, but are one in so far as they are founded upon certain 

* Olshausen well remarks that man; in the passage cited must mean not the ''fides quae 
creditur," but the "fides qua creditur;" for in the former sense it would include all the 
members of the series, all of them being articles of the Christian faith ; whereas it is evidently 
spoken of as something distinct from the rest. He also accounts satisfactorily for the omis- 
sion of the Lord's Supper from the catalogue of fundamental unities. See his commentary 
in loc. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 375 

common principles ; just as the various literary societies of Europe 
may be called one, because they have the same general object, viz. 
the promotion of literature, but they are not one society. It is in 
this sense that Hooker speaks of the "unity of the visible body 
and Church of Christ/'which " consisteth in that uniformity which 
all the several persons thereunto belonging have by reason of that 
one Lord whose servants they all profess themselves to be, that 
one faith which they all acknowledge, that one baptism whereby 
they are all initiated ;" " The visible Church of Christ is therefore 
one in outward profession of those things which supernaturally 
appertain to the very essence of Christianity, and are necessarily 
required in every Christian man." * Wherever these conditions 
exist, the visible Church Catholic is one for the purposes of inter- 
communion and brotherly recognition ; for neither in this nor in 
any other passage of the New Testament, is sameness of Church 
government reckoned among the essential principles of visible 
unity. Hence the Protestant doctrine, that the pure preaching of 
the Word and the due administration of the Sacraments are the 
essential notes of a true Church. 

In pursuance of the plan laid down, we have now to inquire 
whether and how far the organic unity of the mystical body of 
Christ, which in its proper essence is internal and unseen, has suc- 
ceeded in producing any visible representation of itself; whether, 
and how far, a visible organic unity is attainable, and has been 
attained ? In discussing this question, we are necessarily led to 
consider the origin and nature of the episcopate, the third of those 
orders of the ministry for which a divine authority is claimed ; 
a subject which, though its natural place may seem to be in 
immediate connexion with the foregoing inquiry concerning the 
rudiments of ecclesiastical polity, has been purposely reserved for 
discussion under the head of the unity of the Church. For what- 
ever other functions and prerogatives belong, according to the 
Church theory, to the episcopate, it is of the three orders of the 
ministry that to which emphatically is assigned the office of rep- 
resenting the unity of the Church : while presbyters and deacons 
are but congregational officers, the bishop, on the contrary, is the 
representative of an order divinely instituted to be the means of 
binding the whole Church together, and to be the organ of its 
visible unity. No one can have looked into the epistles of Igna- 
tius, in which the episcopal theory first meets us, without per 

* Eccles. Pol. lib. iii. c. L 






9 >76 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 















ceiving that this is the leading idea connected in his mind with 
the episcopate. His fundamental notion of the office is as follows : 
— Christ, the one and undivided Saviour, has multiplied himself, 
so to speak, in the person of the Catholic bishops : through them 
as His organs and representatives He is present in each particular 
Church ; and by means of the episcopate it is that these visible 
Churches are connected together, and form one Church. It is in 
Cyprian's writings, however, that we find the fullest and strongest 
statements upon this subject. According to him, the episcopate is 
a continuation of the apostolate, the Catholic bishops being the 
successors of the inspired Twelve, and inheritors of their func- 
tions, those only being excepted which were peculiar to them as 
inspired persons. As the Apostles then, while they lived, consti- 
tuted a bond of union for the whole Church — Christian societies, 
otherwise distinct communities, being connected together by their 
common subjection to the Apostolic college — so the one and 
undivided episcopate, which has succeeded to the apostolate, 
cements together the whole of Christendom ; each bishop, besides 
his local powers, possessing an authority over the whole Church, 
not as an individual, but as a member of the episcopal college. 
Such is the true import of the celebrated passage : — "Episcopa- 
tus unus est cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur ; " the one 
abstract office having in the bishop of each particular Church its 
organ and representative. 

That episcopacy should be represented by these writers as of 
divine institution — nay, traced up to Christ's own appointment — 
is only what might have been expected. As a part of that visible 
polity in which the essence or differentia of the Church is sup- 
posed to lie, it must claim this character ; but besides what it has 
in common with the other two orders, it possesses a sacredness and 
an importance peculiar to itself. Of all the three, it is the most 
essential to the Church, the most divine. * The bishop is to each 
believer the representative of Christ, the chief organ through whom 
the covenanted grace of God is derived to the Church at large. 
More important still is the privilege which he only possesses, of 
furnishing the Church with pastors : presbyters may spiritually 
generate the sons of God, but presbyters themselves can only be 
generated by the bishop. He is in each Church the symbol and 
centre of unity. Moreover, the Church being an institution for 



• " Sacrosancta synodus declarat, prater cueteros ecclesiasticos gradas, episcopos qui in 
Apostolorum locum successerunt, ad hunc hierarchicum ordinem prsecipue pertinere." Cone. 
Trid. lib. xxiii. c. 4. 






THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 377 

moulding men, by means of outward discipline, into the image of 
God, the power of coercion, which is necessary to carry out such 
a system, and which must be lodged^omewhere, is committed to 
the bishop, who is the repository of the Church's legislative and 
executive authority. Obedience to the bishop is therefore obedi- 
ence to Christ himself. Such is each bishop in his own diocese ; — 
a mighty spiritual potentate, invested with plenary authority over 
God's heritage, and accountable to none but Christ himself. From 
such a view of episcopacy, it follows, of course, that it is essential 
to the very being of a Church ; for where there is no bishop, there 
is no covenanted grace, no legitimate ministry, no sacraments. 
This conclusion may not be actually drawn from the premises : 
exceptions and allowances may be introduced into the theory: 
subtle distinctions may be instituted between the unavoidable and 
the culpable abandonment of the episcopal polity: but all such 
saving clauses are admitted at the expense of logical consistency, 
for if the essence of the Church lie in a certain external polity, 
the absence of that polity, however occasioned, must involve the 
destruction of the subject, just as the dissolution of the human 
body, whether it be the consequence of accident, or of an act of 
self-destruction, terminates the earthly existence of the individual. 
The historical facts bearing upon this subject must now be 
investigated, and the results laid before the reader. If these facts 
furnish good reason for believing that the episcopate was insti- 
tuted on the same principles which guided the Apostles in the 
institution of the two inferior orders, — that, like them, it came 
into being, not as a divinely prescribed ordinance without which 
the Church could have no existence, but simply as a supply for a 
felt want, an extension of the organization of Christian societies 
called for by the circumstances of those societies, and of the age, 
— that, in short, episcopacy is the offspring of the Church, not the 
Church of episcopacy, — we shall have gained an additional con- 
firmation of the conclusion already arrived at, viz. that the Church 
is not, in its idea, an institution of external discipline, but has its 
true being, its specific difference, within. In this point of view, 
the following remarks may be regarded as a kind of supplement 
to those already made in a preceding section on the polity of the 
Church, and therefore as completing the proof of the main position 
insisted upon in the first part of the present work. 

With the view of fully considering the subject, it is proposed, 
in the following inquiry, to examine, first, whether episcopacy can 
be proved to be of divine right, or to have been instituted by 



578 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 






Christ himself; secondly, whether the sole evidence of Scripture 
is sufficient to enable us to pronounce it to be of apostolical insti- 
tution ; and lastly, whether we can fairly draw this latter conclu- 
sion from the joint testimony of Scripture and ecclesiastical history. 
These points being settled, some remarks will be made on what 
may be called the natural history of episcopacy, or the causes 
which led to the establishment of that form of Church government. 
1. Upon the first head, but a few words are necessary. The pas- 
sage cannot be produced from the New Testament in which the 
Saviour is himself said to have instituted the episcopate any more 
than the two inferior grades of the Christian ministry. Sufficient 
reasons have been already given why we should expect that our 
Lord, instead of himself prescribing the external form which the 
Christian ministry was to assume, should have committed the whole 
organization of Christian societies to the Apostles, the inspired 
ministers of the Spirit. Had any distinct testimony, referring epis- 
copacy to Christ's own institution, been adducible from Scripture, 
recourse would never have been had to arguments such as that 
drawn from the several missions of the Twelve and the Seventy, in 
whom, it has been said, we have the prototypes of the two orders 
of bishops and presbyters ; — bishops without a diocese, and pres- 
byters without a church!* What our Lord's purpose may have 
been in issuing two distinct commissions for the exercise of, appa- 
rently, the very same functions, we know not ; but that there is no 
difference between the instructions issued to the Twelve and the 
Seventy, and the powers conferred upon them respectively, is most 
certain. Each body of disciples was commissioned to "go before 
his face into every city and place, whither He himself was about 
to come ;" upon each a similar power was bestowed of performing 
miraculous cures, and to each the Divine presence was equally 
assured. The principle of ministerial imparity, clearly visible as 
it is in Scripture, could never have been inferred from this trans- 
action taken by itself. In fact, there is every reason for believing 
that the commissions issued on this occasion were but temporary, 
and for a special purpose ; for the Seventy appear no more in the 
inspired history, their dissolution, as a body, having apparently 



* See Bishop Taylor, who rests the divine right of episcopacy upon this "rock" as he 
calls it, but in truth most sandy foundation: "This office of the ordinary apostleship, or 
episcopacy, derives its foundation from a rock; Christ's own distinguishing the apostolate 
from the function of presbyters," Ac. Episcopacy asserted, s. 6. The assumption, so 
covertly introduced, that the apostolate and the episcopate are one and the same thing, is 
very characteristic of Taylor's general style of reasoning. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHUKCH. 370 

taken place as soon as, having fulfilled their mission, they returned 
to Christ. That some of the individuals who composed the body 
became afterwards, according to the report which Eusebius has 
preserved,* preachers of the Gospel, or presbyters, in the proper 
sense of the word, is very probable ; for it is to be presumed that 
our Lord's original selection of them was founded upon the fact 
of their evincing qualities which would equally fit them for the 
Christian ministry ; but it proves nothing as to the permanent char- 
acter of the commission given to them by Christ. That Ananias, 
who laid his hands on St. Paul, one of those whom tradition num- 
bers among the Seventy, was a presbyter, rests on no certain evi- 
dence of Scripture ; the contrary may rather be inferred from the 
manner in which he is mentioned in Acts ix. 10. 

It is no matter of surprise that some of the later fathers in their 
solicitude to establish the divine right of episcopacy, should have 
persuaded themselves that the commissions of the Twelve and the 
Seventy present an analogy to the two higher orders of the Christian 
ministry ; but the fathers had on this point no other means of 
forming a judgment than those which are equally accessible to 
ourselves, — viz. the volume of Scripture. 

If there is no proof that Christ, in His own person, instituted 
the episcopate, neither does it anywhere appear that He gave His 
Apostles commandment to do so. After our Lord rose from the 
dead, ''He showed Himself alive" (to His Apostles) "by many 
infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of 
the things pertaining to the kingdom of God : " f among these 
things, it is urged, must have been instructions respecting the 
polity of the Church. An argument which rests upon no tangible 
fact or statement, may surely be dismissed without further notice. 
If it cannot be said that Christ did not, during those days, deliver 
to His Apostles a system of church government, neither can it be 
said that He did ; and here, as far as this passage is concerned, the 
matter must end. It is possible, indeed, that our Lord's discourses, 
during that important interval, may have included some directions 
respecting the visible organization of Christian societies; but 
whether, as a matter of fact, they did so, it is now impossible to 
say, for they who alone could have given us any authentic infor- 
mation on the subject have not done so. The Apostles nowhere 
draw a line of distinction between the regulations of polity which 
] proceeded from themselves and those, if any, which they received 

* Ecclcs. Hist. lib. i. c. 12. t Acts i. 3. 












280 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 






from their divine Master ; nowhere affirm that they received from 
Him any instructions whatever on this point. Where the Scrip- 
ture leaves us in the dark, it seems most advisable to abstain from 
what can be at best a mere conjecture. 

Not only is there no evidence that episcopacy emanated from 
Christ Himself directly, but even that indirect mode of divine 
appointment which belongs to the other two orders is here want- 
ing. If the institution of presbyters and deacons cannot be traced 
up any more than that of episcopacy to Christ's own enactment, 
still, as we have seen, it was a matter of Providential arrangement 
that the synagogue, which furnished the idea of the two inferior 
grades of the ministry, should be in existence in order to receive 
upon itself, as a graft, the polity of Christian societies in its first 
stages. But, as regards episcopacy, the analogy of the synagogue 
fails us. While there can be no reasonable doubt respecting the 
derivation of the presbyters and deacons of a Christian congrega- 
tion from the corresponding officers of the synagogue, that insti- 
tution does not, with anything like the same degree of certainty, 
present us with the historical type of a Christian bishop. It has 
been already remarked that in the New Testament the word 
aQXiovxtywyog signifies, most commonly, not one particular officer, 
superior in authority to the other members of the ecclesi- 
astical senate, but, either an ordinary member of that senate, or, 
where there was no such assembly, the single ruler, or president, 
of the synagogue. Yitringa, indeed, has suggested what is in 
itself extremely probable, that, as is usual in deliberative assem- 
blies, the elders of the synagogue were accustomed to select one 
of themselves, superior to the rest either in age or capacity, to act 
as president of the assembly for the time being, or perhaps as per- 
petual president ; in which custom he seems to himself to discover 
the rudiment of the Christian episcopate : * the proofs, however, 
which he adduces of the existence of such a primus inter pares in 
the Jewish institution are not very conclusive. But independently 
of the insufficiency of the evidence adduced to prove that the 
synagogue possessed any office resembling that of a Christian 
bishop, Yitringa's hypothesis is burdened with another difficulty 
of a more formidable character, which appears to render it alto- 
gether inadmissible, — viz. that, even supposing that the Jewish 
council was commonly presided over by an officer, styled uqxi- 
cvvdymyog, whose office was either temporary or permanent, we 



* De Syn. Vet. lib. ii. p. 586-589. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 231 

must bear in mind that he was merely a functionary of the parti- 
cular synagogue to which he belonged, a congregational minister 
without the jurisdiction of a higher kind. Very different is the 
Christian bishop, as he appears in the pages of Ignatius, or of Cy- 
prian. Besides being connected with a particular Church, he 
belongs to an order which represents the unity of the whole 
Church, and his office extends its influence far beyond the limits 
of his particular locality. With the offices of the synagogue no 
such idea was connected ; nor could it be, for the synagogue had 
its centre of unity not in itself, but in the temple ; it was their 
common connexion with the temple that bound together the mul- 
tiplicity of synagogues scattered over the Roman empire. The 
OQliawdymyog, if any such officer existed, was but the presi- 
dent of a single synagogue ; the bishop is the centre of unity to 
many congregations, and not only the chief pastor of his own 
diocese, but an officer of the Church universal. Hence, while the 
synagogue would naturally supply a model for the strictly con- 
gregational ministers of a Christian Church, — such as the pres- 
byters and deacons, — it would not so naturally suggest the idea 
of a superior pastor, whose authority was to extend over several 
churches, and through whom those churches were to be connected 
with the visible Church throughout the world. 

But did not Christ, in instituting, as He confessedly did, the 
Apostolate, institute at the same time episcopacy ; for what were 
the Apostles but bishops, and what are bishops but successors of 
the Apostles ? Such is the argument put forward by those who, 
at all hazards, would trace up the polity of the Christian Church 
to a divine prescription. In reply to it, we can only ask, as 
before, where is it recorded that Christ invested the Apostles with 
the episcopal office any more than with that of presbyters and 
deacons? The powers which were afterwards appropriated to 
bishops, they undoubtedly did exercise ; but the question is, not 
concerning powers, but concerning a distinct office alleged to have 
been formally instituted in the persons of the Apostles. 

So much misapprehension appears to prevail upon this point, 
and so perpetually is it repeated that the Apostles exercised a 
proper episcopate, that, though the subject has been already 
touched upon, it may be worth while to make some additional 
observations upon it. 

In one sense the Apostles were not only deacons, presbyters, 
and bishops, but metropolitans and patriarchs also ; nay, if we 
suppose the authority and prerogatives claimed for the Roman 






282 church of cueist. 

pontiff capable of being exercised and enjoyed by several persons 
in common, the Apostolic college was a papacy, the only real one 
which the world has ever seen. The decisions of the Apostles in 
matters of faith were infallible ; their supreme authority over the 
whole Church undoubted and constantly exercised. But the ques- 
tion is, in what capacity did they exercise the various functions, 
which in Scripture they are said to have exercised ? When they 
distributed alms, did they do so as deacons ? when they taught, 
did they teach as presbyters? when they ordained, did they 
ordain as bishops? Unless this is established, nothing of argu- 
mentative value is gained by urging the mere fact that they acted 
on different occasions as deacons, presbyters, and bishops, were 
afterwards accustomed to act. For they may have acted through- 
out as Apostles, — as persons, that is, upon whom a general power 
had been conferred by Christ to set in order everything relating to 
the Church both in polity and in doctrine, and who exercised that 
power in different ways and on different occasions. Thus the 
Koman dictator combined in himself the several powers distri- 
buted between the ordinary magistrates of the republic ; but when 
he acted, he did so in every instance as dictator ; not in one case 
as Consul, in another, as Praetor, and in a third, as Quaestor. The 
devolution of powers to an individual is not the devolution to him 
of the formal offices to which those powers are, in ordinary times, 
attached. The commander of an army is frequently called upon 
to discharge the functions of a statesman or an ambassador, but 
he is not on that account, formally, a civil functionary. It is in 
this light that the government of the Church by the Apostles is 
to be regarded. They are nowhere found claiming for themselves 
a series of distinct offices, or affirming that they do one act by 
virtue of one office, and a different act by virtue of another: 
whatever they did they did as Apostles. When they taught or 
administered the sacraments, they exercised the same functions 
which were afterwards appropriated to presbyters, as distinguished 
from deacons ; when they ordained, they performed an act which 
came to be the special prerogative of bishops ; but, in both cases, 
they acted not as presbyters and bishops, but as Apostles : they 
acted by virtue of their general commission to do everything 
necessary for the establishment and edifying of the Church. 
Wherever they were, and whatever they did, they were Apostles ; 
they never divested themselves of their proper character; they 
were always, and none but they were, the inspired messengers of 
the Spirit. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 283 

The Apostles received from Christ a general commission, with 
plenary authority over the whole church, and supernatural en- 
dowments to preserve them from error in the exercise of that 
authority. By virtue of this commission they taught, ruled, or- 
dained, corrected abuses, decided points of doctrine, delivered 
blasphemers to Satan : but every one can see how defective the 
argument is, The Apostles governed and ordained ; Bishops also, 
in subsequent times, governed and ordained ; therefore the Apos- 
tles were Bishops. The mere performance of similar acts does not, 
as is obvious, establish the formal relation of predecessor and 
successor. 

It will be urged, however, that while delegating to presbyters a 
commission to perform the ordinary functions of the ministry, — 
such as the preaching of the Word and the administration of the 
Sacraments, — the Apostles reserved to themselves and their depu- 
ties the powers of ordination and of excommunication. The ques- 
tion relating to excommunication we pass over for the present. 
With respect to what we now call ordination, the Apostles no- 
where expressly reserve to themselves the power of setting apart 
persons to the office of the ministry ; nowhere are they found to 
have laid it down as a rule, that to the validity of ordinations, 
their own presence, or that of their deputies, was essential. It is 
a fact, indeed, that none but the Apostles or their deputies appear 
in the New Testament to have ordained elders ; and, as a matter 
of fact, valeat quantum ; but we search in vain for any declaration 
to the effect that this was the peculiar function — the differentia, 
or specific characteristic — of the Apostolic office, considered apart 
from its confessedly extraordinary and temporary endowments. 
In one passage only of Scripture have we any intimation of what 
the Apostles themselves regarded as of the ordinary and perpetual 
functions of the ministry that which was peculiar to themselves — 
the passage, namely, in which they are found expressing a wish to 
be released from the secular labour of serving tables, in order that 
they might give themselves "continually to prayer and the min- 
istry of the Word " (Acts, vi. 4.). Here no mention is made of 
government or of ordination, as the special prerogative of the 
Apostolic office ; and if it were not dangerous to la^ too much 
stress upon a single passage, it might from this one bv, plausibly 
inferred that the special function of the Apostles, as representath 
of the ordinary Christian ministry, has descended, not to bishops, 
but to presbyters, to whom it specially appertains to give them- 
selves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Still, no doubt, 






284 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









it remains matter of fact that, as a general rule, none but the 
Apostles, or their delegates, ordained ; and an important fact it is : 
but of what argumentative value is it in the present connexion ? 
For that the Apostles ordained by virtue of the episcopal office 
enveloped in their apostolate is nowhere told us ; and this is the 
point that must be established, if it is to be proved that the Apos- 
tles were formally Bishops. Otherwise we have only an argument 
similar to that before mentioned, — viz. The Apostles only are 
found to have ordained ; but in subsequent times, Bishops only 
ordained; therefore the Apostles were Bishops. 

It is not, however, to be denied, that during the interval between 
the instituting of the two inferior orders, and that of Bishops, the 
Apostolic College presented an analogy to what the episcopate after- 
wards became ; and to those who, not content with refusing to epis- 
copacy the title of a divine institution, denounce it as positively 
unscriptural, it may fairly be replied that, from the time when the 
polity of the Church began to assume any visible consistence, three 
orders of the ministry are discernible in it — viz. deacons (including 
deaconesses), the order indifferently termed presbyters or overseers, 
and, superior to both, the Apostles. When a search is being made 
for Scriptural precedents, or hints in favour of episcopacy, the 
position of the Apostles, in reference to deacons and presbyters, 
will not be overlooked by those who are on the watch for intima- 
tions of the mind of the Spirit ; but to affirm, as Cyprian does, that 
the Apostles were formally bishops,* is to speak without the war- 
rant of Scripture, and in forgetfulness of the essential points of dis- 
tinction between the Apostolic office, and that of a bishop in later 
times. For nothing surely but dogmatical prepossessions could 
have blinded Cyprian to the fact that the overseership of the Apos- 
tles — their personal prerogative of inspiration being altogether put 
out of view — differed in several important particulars from the 
episcopacy of a subsequent age. To take one point as an instance : — 
according to Cyprian's own idea of the episcopal office and the 
Catholic rule, each church should have its own, and no church more 
than one, bishop : the bishop, though he was the organ of commu- 
nication between the various churches of Christendom, was essen- 
tially a local officer, and had no authority over any diocese but 
his own. The Apostolic authority, on the contrary, extended over 
the universal church ; it was of the essence of the Apostles' over 



* "Merainisse autem diaconi debent quoniam apostolos, id est, episcopos et pricpositos, 
dominus elegit."— Epist. 65. Ad Rog. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 285 

seership not to be circumscribed by any local limits, but to embrace 
the whole of Christendom. The selection, by certain of their 
number, of different spheres of labour — Paul and Barnabas going 
unto the heathen, and James, Peter, and John, devoting themselves 
more particularly to the circumcision — presents no real analogy 
to the fixed oversight of one chief pastor in each church. 

The truth is, the whole of the polity into which the Church is 
found at the close of the first century to have settled is of Apos- 
tolic, not of divine, institution ; or divine only in so far as it is 
Apostolic. Christ gave to His Church Apostles : it was the Apos- 
tles who gave to the Church deacons, presbyters, and, finally, 
bishops. The episcopate can be traced to no higher a source than 
that to which the presbyterate and diaconate is traceable. The 
Apostolic office was altogether a peculiar one : it was vouchsafed 
by Christ for the purpose of founding and organizing Christian 
societies, but it was never intended to be a permanent part of their 
polity. When the Apostles had completed their work upon earth, 
they were removed for the very same reason that Christ Himself, 
having risen from the dead, did not remain in the world, — viz. 
that it was incompatible with the nature of a spiritual and uni- 
versal dispensation that there should exist attached to any par- 
ticular locality a living infallible tribunal ; and for the same reason 
they neither had nor have any successors. Certain functions which 
the Apostles exercised continued to be exercised after their death 
by the ordinary ministers of the Church ; but the Apostolic office 
ended with the persons of the Apostles, and has never since been 
vouchsafed to the Church. The place which the Apostles occupied 
while they lived is now filled, not by a living order of ministers, 
but by their own inspired writings, which constitute, or ought to 
constitute, the supreme authority in the Church of God. In these 
writings the Apostles yet live and speak : St. Paul, St. Peter, St. 
John, and St. Matthew, have not abdicated their office, or trans- 
ferred it to other persons ; they still govern the universal Church, 
decide points of doctrine, reform abuses, set in order Christian 
societies : so that there is no need, as there is no evidence, for the 
continuation of a living apostolate. The New Testament Scrip- 
tures, as they are the only real apostolate now in existence, so, are 
sufficient to supply to us the place of the inspired Twelve. It is 
possible, indeed, that all that is meant by terming the Apostles 
bishops, and therefore bishops successors of the Apostles, is, that 
bishops now perform certain ecclesiastical acts which the Apostles, 
while they remained upon earth, appeared to have reserved to 






286 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 












themselves and their delegates : but, if this be the case, why retain 
a phrase which is sure to mislead, and which has, in fact, given 
rise to serious errors ? No instance, in truth, can be adduced more 
strikingly illustrative of the mischievous consequences of using 
incautious language in reference to sacred subjects, whether with- 
out an end in view or designedly to introduce a theory. If bishops 
are really successors of the Apostles, it follows that the united 
episcopate (supposing it to be, as it once was, united) is infallible 
in matters of faith ; a dogma which is, in no essential point, dif- 
ferent from the Komish doctrine of infallibility, since, equally 
with the latter, it transfers the seat of that prerogative from the 
Apostles represented in their writings to the existing Church. 
That each of the three orders of the Christian ministry presents, 
in certain points, a resemblance to the ordinary Apostolic func- 
tions is admitted ; but similarity of functions by no means consti- 
tute identity of office, and nothing can be more groundless in fact, 
or more dangerous in tendency, than to assert of any particular 
order of the ministry — whether bishops or presbyters — that they 
are formally successors of the inspired Twelve. 

2. But if episcopacy cannot be traced up to Christ Himself, 
may it not claim »to be, at least, an Apostolical institution ? Here, 
indeed, the ground beneath us becomes firmer: there is every 
reason to believe that it is an Apostolic appointment : meanwhile 
it cannot be denied that Scripture alone furnishes but slender data 
for our pronouncing it to be so. And this, be it observed, may be 
admitted without weakening the evidence of its Apostolicity. 
There may be proof sufficient to satisfy any reasonable mind 
Jiat the Apostles bestowed on the Church, as their latest gift, 
episcopacy, and yet Scripture may not be the source whence the 
proof is to be drawn. Timothy and Titus may have been bishops 
of Ephesus and Crete respectively, and yet it may be impossible 
to prove from Scripture alone that they were so. And in truth it 
does seem an arduous task to attempt to discover in the inspired 
record, taken alone, the existence of an order of ministers, not 
Apostles, and yet superior to presbyters and deacons. 

Besides the Apostles, two orders of ministers meet us in Scrip- 
ture, distinguished by fixed titles of office, — presbyters or over- 
seers (jniGMTtm), and deacons ; both of them, if we are to regard 
the seven mentioned in Acts, vi. as the first deacons, of express 
Apostolical institution. No order of ministers other than these 
three — Apostles, Presbyters, and Deacons — are mentioned in the 
New Testament as forming part of the then existing polity of the 



THE UKU'Y OF THE CHtTKCH. 287 

Church. For every attempt to establish a distinction between the 
presbyter and the episcopus of Scripture will proof fruitless; so 
abundant is the evidence which proves that they were but differ- 
ent appellations of the same official person. It is not from one, or 
two, but from a variety of passages that we infer this. One of 
the most conclusive proofs is that furnished by the well known 
address of St. Paul to the Ephesian elders in Acts, xx., in which 
the same persons, whom, at v. 28, St. Paul calls "bishops" {Lmc- 
xonovg) are described by St. Luke, at v. 17., as "the presbyters of 
the Church" of Ephesus.* In 1 Tim. iii. 1. the office termed 
ima-Aonri must, if Timothy was then formal bishop of Ephesus, 
be no other than that of presbyter ; as indeed is evident from a 
comparison of the whole passage with the corresponding one in 
Titus, the qualifications required being precisely the same in both. 
Still more strikingly are the names interchanged in the passage 
just mentioned, Tit. i. 5 — 7.: — "For this cause left I thee in 
Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, 
and ordain elders (jtQeofivxtQovg) in every city : if any be blameless 
&c. For a bishop (tmo*onog) must be blameless " &c. St. Peter's 
language, too, is decisive as regards the point in question: — 

"The elders (rrgea^vrtfjovg) which are among you I exhort 

feed the flock which is among you, taking the oversight thereof 
(imaxonovvteg), not by constraint, but willingly," &c. (1 Peter, v. 

1, 2.)- 

This direct evidence is confirmed by indirect. When St. Paul, 
for example, salutes "the bishops and deacons" of the Philippian 
church, omitting all mention of the presbyters, the omission, and, 
as Chrysostom remarks, the fact of their being several "bishops" 
in one church, f can only be accounted for by the supposition that 
these imaxonoi were in fact presbyters. And that in the churches 
to which St. Peter addressed his first epistle there were no eccle- 

* The supposition that the Lithtkoitoi mentioned in verse 28. were not identical with the 
rpcaPvrepoi of verse 17., but bishops in the strict sense of the word, presiding over the 
neighbouring churches, resting as it does on the sole opinion of Irenaeus, has long been 
abandoned by the best commentators as untenable. Irenaeus and they who adopt his view 
argue upon the erroneous assumption that St. Paul in his address uses both the terafj pres- 
byter* and bishops. This is not the case. It is St. Luke, who, at verso 17., speaks of tho 
"elders of the Church;" by which he undoubtedly means the presbytery of the Kphe.-ian 
church. For the word £**A»j<ria in the singular number denotes in the New TlltWf, 
either the mystical body of Christ or a single church; never an aggregate of particular 
churches. Those whom St. Luke describes as "presbyters," St Paul afterwards calls 
"bishops," which names, therefore, signify one and the same office. 

i~Liv imoK6irois cat 6taKdvot(' ri rovro ; f4<ds jrdXcwj rroAAoi inioiconoi riaav ; ovo>in<o( aAAa rovj 
xpeaP vrcpovi ovraij tKaKtot.— Horn. 1. in Bp. ad Phil. 






288 



C II U E C II OF CHRIST. 









siastical persons superior to presbyters is evident from the passage 
above cited : — " the elders which are among you I your fellow - 
elder (o av^TtQea^vtegog) exhort/' &c. 

There is no difficulty in accounting for this two-fold appellation 
of the same office. The order of ministers next above that of 
deacons first appears in connexion with the Church of Jerusalem 
(Acts, xi. 30.) ; and in that passage it is designated by the term 
proper to the office of the Jewish synagogue with which it corres- 
ponded, — viz. that of the D»ap.j or elders, in Greek, TtQeapvzEQot. 
This, doubtless, was the original name, and the usual, if not ex- 
clusive, one in all the Christian communities of Jewish origin. 
But in the case of churches composed of those who had been 
heathens, and to whom Jewish titles and offices were consequently 
less familiar, while the office was established, another name was 
given to it, a name which was in general use among the Greeks, 
and signified any kind of overseer, — viz. Iniaxonog ; in accord- 
ance with the Apostolic rule of not disturbing old associations, 
where they did not contravene the essential truths of the Gospel. 
That this is the true account of the interchange of these words may 
be inferred from the fact that while the word hnicxonog, as used 
to denote the second order of Christian ministers, is not found in 
the epistles of St. Peter and St. James, who were especially con- 
nected with the Jewish converts, it is, on the contrary, very 
commonly applied to that order by St. Paul, the Apostle of the 
Gentiles, and by his follower, St. Luke. 

Nor is there any weight in the remark that all the names 
belonging to the Christian ministry — apostle, presbyter, and 
deacon — are, in the New Testament, applied in an indiscriminate 
manner ; that St. Peter, as we have seen, calls himself a presbyter, 
and St. Paul speaks of himself and his fellow Apostles as " minis 
ters " (that is, deacons) of the New Testament ; that Timothy is 
called a deacon, while Epaphroditus bears the name of an Apostle : 
so that, if, from the interchange of the names tmaxonog and 
noeafivteQog, it is to be inferred that they were not distinct 
offices, we must carry the argument further, and conclude, from 
the interchange of all the names just mentioned, that there were 
no distinct offices of apostle, presbyter, and deacon.* This cir- 
cumstance would doubtless cause some embarrasment, were it not 
that the offices of deacons and presbyters are repeatedly referred 
to in Scripture, as offices, and irrespectively of individuals ; but, 






* Manning, Unity, &c, p. 117- 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 289 

this being the case, the indiscriminate application of the three 
names produces no real confusion. St. Paul might call himself a 
deacon, and Epaphroditus an Apostle ; but we know that St. Paul 
did not belong to the order of deacons, and that Epaphroditus was 
not one of the Apostolic college. Whereas the interchange of the 
names imcxonog and nj^vtEgog, as applied not to individuals, 
but to a class, an order in the Church, would, if those offices were 
really distinct, be unintelligible except on the supposition that the 
inspired writers wished to mislead us as to the actual fact. If this 
be inadmissable, we must conclude that by these names is denoted 
one and the same ministerial order ; which, indeed, is the truth. 

It will be urged, however, that, although no order of ministers 
can be discovered in the New Testament inferior to Apostles, but 
superior to Presbyters, there yet meet us there certain individuals, 
not Apostles, and yet manifestly exercising functions superior to 
those of a simple presbyter. Allowing this to be the fact, we 
must, however, direct attention to the wide difference that exists, 
as regards argumentative value, between the institution of an 
order of ministers and individual cases of the kind alluded to. No 
one would contend that the evidence for the existence in the 
Apostolic age of the offices of presbyters and deacons would have 
been so cogent as it is, had Scripture, instead of recording the 
institution of the offices, merely informed us that a commission 
had been issued by the Apostles to certain individuals to exercise 
the functions of a presbyter or deacon. For, in the latter case, the 
Apostles might not have meant to create a new office, or an office 
at all ; the commission might have been merely personal, or for a 
temporary purpose ; and, therefore, we could not at once infer that 
in the persons of the individuals so commissioned a new order of 
ministers was intended to be established. In civil affairs commis 
sions are frequently issued for special purposes, without any inten 
tion on the part of the government of creating thereby a perma- 
nent office ; and when the purposes of the commission are .ful- 
filled, the individuals composing it revert to their former private 
capacity. 

Even, therefore, if there were nothing in the epistles to Timothy 
and Titus, or in the peculiar relation in which these disciples stood 
to St. Paul, to create a presumption against their having been, b)r 
the commission contained in those epistles, appointed formal 
bishops of Ephesus and Crete, we should still remember that we 
have here, not the record of the institution of a new ministerial 
office, but simply a commission to certain individuals to exercise 

19 



290 



CHURCH OP CHRIST. 












powers which afterwards became the special prerogatives of the 
episcopate. That the position in which Timothy and Titus were 
thus placed in reference to the presbyters of Ephesus and Crete 
deserves our serious attention is fully admitted ; but it does not 
seem sufficient, in the absence of any express declaration of the 
Apostle to that effect, to enable us to pronounce them to have been 
invested with a new and permanent office. 

But this further evidence of the Apostle's intention is not forth- 
coming. For aught that appears in the epistles to the contrary, 
the commissions of Timothy and Titus may have been but tempo- 
rary ones, ,and intended to meet a special emergency. Two 
favoured associates of St. Paul are despatched by him to Ephesus 
and Crete, for the purpose of " setting in order the things that 
were wanting," correcting certain disorders which had crept in 
among the Christians of those places, and ordaining elders where 
they were needed. This is the sum total of the fact with which 
we have to deal. That the Apostle thereby intended to create in 
the persons of Timothy and Titus a new office in the Church is 
not told us. We must even, in candour, admit that it is very 
improbable that either Timothy or Titus were, at that time, per- 
manently invested with the government of the Ephesian or Cretan 
churches. On a reader, who should succeed in dismissing from 
his mind the bias produced by the testimony of history, which 
there is no reason to disbelieve, that Timothy and Titus afterwards 
became Bishops of Ephesus and Crete respectively, the impression 
produced by the pastoral epistles would probably be, that in 
neither case was the commission given to these disciples other 
than temporary, and for a special purpose. St. Paul and Timothy 
had been, as we learn from 1 Tim. i. 3., labouring conjointly in 
the Ephesian church, when the Apostle was compelled to take his 
departure into Macedonia. In his first epistle to Timothy, he 
beseeches him to abide at Ephesus, while he (Paul) was absent, in 
order that the work in which they had both been engaged might 
not be interrupted. The epistle thus addressed to Timothy 
would serve as credentials of his commission, and of the authority 
with which he was invested, in case any "man should despise his 
youth." He was charged to maintain sound doctrine in opposition 
to all false teaching ; and to see that none but properly qualified 
persons were selected for the offices of presbyter and deacon. 
Over these inferior ministers his authority extended ; for he was 
" not to receive an accusation against an elder but before two or 
three witnesses ; " which proves that he exercised some kind of 



THE UNITY OF THE CHUECH. 291 

jurisdiction over elders. * The same remarks apply to the case 
of Titus. He, like Timothy, had been a fellow-labourer of St. 
Paul in Crete ; and when the Apostle, from causes unknown to 
us, was compelled to quit the island before the organization of its 
Christian societies had been completed, Titus was left behind with 
a charge in all respects similar to that given to Timothy: — "For 
this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the 
things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had 
appointed thee." f Now there is no question but that Timothy 
and Titus here appear as the representatives of St. Paul himself: 
the Apostolic power was delegated to them for the time being : 
they claimed the obedience of the Ephesian and Cretan presbyters 
in the name of St. Paul. Not only, however, is there no positive 
evidence in all this that St. Paul intended to create in the persons 
of Timothy and Titus a new ecclesiastical office, but there appear 
to be, in the epistles themselves, express intimations that their 
commission was but a temporary one ; that it was to terminate 
either when St. Paul should rejoin them, or should direct them to 
go elsewhere. Such, at least, is the impression conveyed by such 
passages as the following: — "These things write I unto thee, 
hoping to come unto thee shortly ; but if I tarry, that thou mightest 
know how to behave thyself in the house of God," &c. ; "Till I 
come, give attendance to reading," &c. \ The Apostle, apparently, 
was not able to fulfil his intention of rejoining them ; and accord- 
ingly, adopting the other alternative, he urges both Timothy (in 
the 2nd epistle) and Titus to despatch as quickly as possible what 
remained to be done, and to repair, the former to Eome, the latter 
to Nicopolis : " Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me ; for 
Demas .... is departed unto Thessalonica ; Crescens to Galatia ; 
Titus to Dalmatia : " " When I shall send Artemas unto thee, or 
Tychicus, be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis." § From the 
former of these passages we incidentally gather that Titus's stay 
in Crete was, in fact, but short ; for the second epistle to Timothy 
having been written either a little after or at the same time as 
that to Titus, it should seem that the latter had, according to the 
Apostle's direction, joined him where he was residing, and by him 

* In the passage in 1 Tim. v. 1. — "Rebuke not an elder," <fcc. — usually cited to prove 
that Timothy was invested with disciplinary authority over presbyters, tho word "elder" 
most probably means, not an ecclesiastical officer, but any elderly person, for it is opposed to 
tho "younger men" who are mentioned immediately afterwards, by whom clearly are meant 
the younger members of the society in general. 

t Tit i. 5. XI Tim. iii. 14, 15.; iv. 13. 

12 Tim. iv. 9, 10.; Tit. iii. 12. 



292 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 






• 



had been despatched on another mission, — viz. to Dalmatia, 
With respect to this second epistle to Timothy, written, according 
to the most probable hypothesis, about a year after the first, and 
in the immediate prospect of martyrdom, it is to be observed that 
there is no mention whatever in it of Timothy's being permanent 
bishop of Ephesus, or, indeed, of his being in any way connected 
with that church. That he was at Ephesus when the epistle was 
addressed to him, we gather only from the probabilities of the 
case, and from the mention of Hymenseus and Alexander (c. ii. 
17., iv. 14.), who seem to be the same persons against whom 
Timothy is warned in the first epistle (c. i. 20.). 

This evidence of the temporary nature of the commissions of 
Timothy and Titus, furnished by the epistles themselves, would 
perhaps be by itself not very conclusive ; but it receives a strong 
confirmation from the peculiar relation in which these apostolical 
men stood to St. Paul, a relation which renders it most improbable 
that they exercised, during the Apostle's lifetime, any fixed episco- 
pal functions. In fact, Timothy and Titus belonged to a class of 
persons occupying a conspicuous place in St. Paul's epistles, who 
may be called Apostolic delegates, or commissioners; who, from 
the resemblance which their functions bore in some particulars to 
those of a bishop, and probably from the fact that the first bishops 
were chosen from their number, were by a later age easily mis- 
taken for formal bishops. The origin of these Apostolic delegates is 
easily explained. As the field of St. Paul's missionary labours 
extended itself, and the number of churches standing in a peculiar 
relation towards him as their founder increased, it became more 
and more difficult for him to carry on the oversight of these 
churches in person. The only method of supplying his unavoida- 
ble absences, was to do through others what he could not do in pro- 
pria, persona. Accordingly, he seems, at an early period of his 
ministry, to have selected from the general body of believers cer- 
tain persons, eminent for their natural and spiritual endowments, 
whom he attached to his person, and some of whom commonly 
accompanied him in his journeys. As soon as they had, by famil- 
iar and constant intercourse with the Apostle, become fully imbued 
with his sentiments, and had proved themselves fit to be entrusted 
with authority, they were by him despatched to different parts of 
the Christian world, or that portion of it which St. Paul claimed as 
his own peculiar sphere of labour, as need seemed to require. 
Sometimes they were sent to check one or more of the many here- 
tical tendencies which even in that early age had begun to manifest 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 293 

themselves ; sometimes to correct practical abuses, or to assist in 
organizing a Christian society. Wherever they appeared, they 
were understood to come clothed with St. Paul's authority, empow- 
ered by Him to supply what was wanting, to "reprove, rebuke 
and exhort with all authority and doctrine." But (and herein lay 
the peculiarity of their office) they, like the Apostles themselves, 
were never permanently fixed in any one place. As soon as they 
had finished the business upon which they had been sent to any 
particular church, they returned to the Apostle, who either retained 
them in attendance upon himself, or sent them forth on a mission 
to some other church needing their supervision. St. Paul in his 
epistles generally appears attended by one or more of these Apos- 
tolic delegates ; and, by a comparison of those compositions, we 
can ascertain, with a high degree of probability, many of their 
names. Thus the names associated with St. Paul's own in the intro- 
ductory salutations of his epistles — among which we find Silva- 
nus, Sosthenes, and, more frequently than any other, Timothy — 
were doubtless those of persons belonging to this class. The fol- 
lowing passages contain the names of several of these Apostolic 
commissioners, and also explain the nature of their office: — 
" Timotheus my work-fellow, and Lucius, &c, salute you." * "If 
Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear : for he 
worketh the work of the Lord, even as I do." f " God, that com- 
forteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of 
Titus, when he told us your earnest desire, &c., towards me:" 
"And his" (Titus) "inward affection is more abundant towards 
you, whilst he remembereth the obedience of you all, how with 
fear and trembling ye received him." X " We have sent with him 
(Titus) the brother whose praise is in all the churches." § " We 
have sent with them our brother, whom we have oftentimes proved 
diligent in many things. Whether any do inquire of Titus, he is 
my partner and fellow-helper concerning you : or our brethren be 
inquired of, they are the messengers (dnoozoXoi) of the churches." || 
" Did I make a gain of you by any of them whom I sent unto you? 
I desired Titus, and with him I sent a brother." T " That ye may 
also know my affairs, and how I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother 
and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known unto you all 
things: whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose."** "I 

* Rom. xvi. 21. t 1 Cor. xvi. 10. See v. 11. 

% 2 Cor. vii. vv. 6-15. I Ibid. viii. 18. 

| Ibid. viii. 22, 23. IT Ibid. xii. 17, 18. 
** Ephes. vi. 21. 






294 



CHUKCH OF CHRIST. 






supposed it necessary to send unto yon Epaphroditus, my brother, 
and companion in labour, and fellow- soldier, but your messenger 
(dnooroXov), and lie that ministered to my wants." * "Aristarchus 
my fellow-prisoner saluteth you, and Marcus, sister's son to Barna- 
bas, touching whom ye have received commandments : if he come 
unto you, receive him." f " We thought it good to be left at Athens 
alone ; and sent Timotheus, our brother, &c, to establish you, and 
comfort you concerning your faith." ^ "Only Luke is with me. 
Take Mark, and bring him with thee : for he is profitable to me for 
the ministry. And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus." § "When 
I shall send Artemas unto thee, or Tychicus, be diligent to come 
unto me." || " There salute you Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in 
Christ Jesus; Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow- 
labourers." Tf 

It is to this class of Apostolic delegates that Timothy and Titus, 
as we see from the frequent mention of their names, belonged ; 
both, but especially the former, being among the most confidential 
and eminent of those whom St. Paul thus employed. This being 
so, it is, obviously, very unlikely that the Apostle would, in his 
lifetime, have attached them permanently to any particular church. 
A consideration which, coupled with the plain statements of the 
pastoral epistles, may well lead us to conclude that the position 
of Timothy at Ephesus and of Titus in Crete was not, at that 
time, a formal episcopate. 

These two cases are those upon which the Scriptural evidence 
for episcopacy mainly rests, for to the others which have been 
adduced so much uncertainty confessedly attaches that but little 
stress can be laid upon them. Thus that St. James, the brother 
of our Lord, exercised some kind of presidency, and that a per- 
manent one, in the Church of Jerusalem is manifest from the way 
in which he is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles ; but what 
the nature of it was, and whether it was official, or simply per- 
sonal, is not told us. History, indeed, informs us that he became 
bishop of Jerusalem, and its testimony on this point may be 
accepted ; but what we are now concerned with is the evidence 
for episcopacy which Scripture by itself furnishes. As regards the 
Apocalyptic angels, the character of the book in general, and the 
evidently metaphorical titles which they bear, prevent us from 



* Phil. ii. 25. 
X 1 Thess. iii. 
| Tit. iii. 12. 



1,2. 



t Col. iv. 10. 

1 1 Tim. iv. 11, 12. 

fl Philem. 23, 24. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 295 

drawing any certain conclusions concerning them. * Diotrephes, 
indeed, mentioned by St. John, 3d Epist. 9. ; was a real person ; 
but whether the influence by which he was enabled to withstand 
the Apostle's authority was derived from his official position as 
bishop of the Church, or whether he was merely an ambitious 
and arrogant presbyter, we know not. It is possible that both the 
" angels " of the Apocalyptic Churches and Diotrephes were formal 
bishops, for no reasonable doubt can be entertained that, if the 
date commonly assigned to the Apocalypse — viz. A. D. 95 or 96 — 
be correct, episcopacy was, when that book was written, gene- 
rally, if not universally, established; but whence the "angels" or 
Diotrephes, if bishops, derived their commission, by whom they 
were appointed to preside over their respective churches ; in short, 
respecting the origin of the episcopal order ; upon this, the essen- 
tial point in the present argument, Scripture leaves us very much 
in the dark. 

Such is the real amount of proof which Scripture alone furnishes 
for the apostolicity of the episcopal regimen ; how scanty and in- 
sufficient it is needs not to be pointed out. The reader will now be 
able to judge how far the actual facts of the case bear out the asser- 
tion that episcopacy is matter of divine prescription ; a law of God, 
as essential to the being of a Church as the Aaronic priesthood was 
to the integrity of the Levitical ritual; so essential that Cyprian 
could say, " Scire debes episcopum in ecclesia esse et ecclesiam in 
episcopo, et si quis cum episcopo non sit, in ecclesia non esse." f 
The truth is, that, while none of the three orders is traceable to a 
directly divine institution, of the three, episcopacy is the one, the 
very apostolicity of which is the most difficult of establishment 
by the unaided evidence of Scripture: for while it is clearly re- 
corded that the Apostles instituted the orders of presbyters and 
deacons, it is not so clearly recorded (indeed it is not recorded at 
all) that they instituted the order of bishops. It certainly is a 

* If Augustin's authority is to decide the question, the Apocalyptic angels are to be 
regarded, not as individuals, but as personifications of the churches themselves: — "laudatur 
angelus ecclesiae quae est Ephesi (quern nemo recte intelligens dubitat ipsius ecclesi® ges- 
tare personam)" Ac. — Post Coll. Lib. 8. 37. Stillingfleet's remarks upon the passage are 
well worthy of attention. "If many things in the epistles be directed to the angels, but 
yet so as to concern the whole body, then, of necessity, the angel must be taken as a repre- 
sentative of the whole body; and then, why may not the word 'angel' bo taken by way of 
representation of the body itself, either of the whole Church, or, which is fur more probable, 
of the concessors or order of presbyters in that church? We see what miserable unaccountable 
arguments those are which are brought for any kind of government from metaphorical or ambiguous 
expressions, or names promiscuously used. "— Irenicum, part 2. c. 6. 

t Epist. 69. Ad Florent. 






296 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









curious, but highly characteristic, fact that that particular order 
of the ministry which the Church system pronounces to be the 
most divine and the most essential should rest upon Scriptural 
proof, to say the least, obscure and ambiguous as compared with 
that which can be adduced for the two inferior orders. For if the 
"angels" of the Apocalypse, and Diotrephes, were not of this 
order, the foregoing considerations make it more than probable 
that the New Testament does not present us with any instance of 
a formal bishop. 

Nevertheless the cases of Timothy and Titus, if they fail in 
establishing the apostolicity of episcopacy, are not without their 
value, as against the opponents of that form of Church government. 
Like the positions of the Apostles after the institution of presbyters 
and deacons, that of Timothy at Ephesus and of Titus at Crete is 
a significant fact to which the candid reader of Scripture, mindful 
of the manner in which the New Testament propounds apostolic 
precedents to our imitation, will not fail to give due weight. 
What these cases really appear to establish is, the general, but im- 
portant, principle, or rather principles, that an imparity of Chris- 
tian ministers is not only allowable, but Scriptural; and that, 
according to the mind of St. Paul, the general superintendence or 
government of an ecclesiastical district, including churches with 
their presbyters and deacons, is best committed to a single person. 
For if no strong reasons exist for the contrary supposition, it is to 
be presumed that what was best for the Ephesian church for a 
time (Timothy's mission thither being supposed to be only a tem- 
porary one) would have been also best for it permanently ; and 
that form of government which was best for the church of Ephe- 
sus or of Crete would, it may equally be presumed, have been the 
best for every church then existing, and, by parity of reasoning, 
for every church now in existence. Thus, no doubt, the cases 
alluded to furnish a hint — an apostolic precedent — upon which 
episcopacy may be made to rest : they serve to rebut the allega- 
tion that that form of polity is intrinsically unscriptural : but 
beyond this it does not appear that they can be safely urged. 

To the establishment of episcopacy proper there cannot, with 
any show of probability, be assigned an earlier date than A. D. 70, 
which is later than the latest of St. Paul's writings. Every thing 
conspires to induce the belief that the Church did not possess 
formal bishops until after the destruction of Jerusalem. In the 
first place, if bishops really are successors of the Apostles, is it 
likely that St. Paul would have appointed persons to take his 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 297 

place while he was yet alive and actively engaged in the oversight 
of the churches? It is conceivable, indeed, that he may have 
designated certain persons to occupy the post of chief pastor in 
each considerable church as soon as death should, have removed 
him from his ministerial labours upon earth ; but that he would 
actually instal them in their offices, while he himself held in his 
own hands the reins of government, is not at all probable. It 
should seem, therefore, that they who lay such stress upon the 
cases of Timothy and Titus find themselves on the horns of the 
following dilemma: If Timothy and Titus, when St. Paul ad- 
dressed his epistles to them, were formal bishops, bishops are not 
successors of the Apostles, for the Apostle Paul had not, at that 
time, either abdicated his apostolic functions, or been removed 
from earth : if, on the other hand, it is essential to the idea of a 
bishop that he succeed to the place of the Apostles, Timothy and 
Titus could not, at the time of which we are speaking, have been 
formal bishops. But another, and a stronger argument, in favour 
of the date just mentioned, is derivable from the nature of the 
episcopate, as compared with the two inferior orders of the minis- 
try. It has been already remarked that, while presbyters and 
deacons are clearly traceable to the synagogue, we cannot discover 
in that institution the prototype of a Christian bishop, whose office, 
therefore, seems to have been the peculiar and independent off- 
spring of Christianity : in giving episcopacy to the Church the 
Apostles appear to have acted, for the first time, irrespectively of 
any Jewish precedent. In short, it was in becoming episcopal 
that the Church first became conscious of her independence of 
Judaism, and proclaimed to the world that, whatever might be- 
come of the forms of the elder dispensation, she had within her- 
self her own peculiar organization, and could thenceforward 
advance alone. Now if we bear in mind the extreme reluctance 
which the Apostles, even St. Paul himself, exhibited to commit 
themselves to any act which might seem forcibly to sever the 
connexion between the church and the temple, we shall sec how 
probable it is that, while the temple stood, the synagogical polity 
of presbyters and deacons was all that the Church possessed. 
Christianity was the offspring of genuine — i. e. spiritual — Juda- 
ism; and, the Mosaic polity with the temple services being of 
express divine appointment, the Apostles, themselves Jews, would 
naturally feel reluctant, in the absence of any intimation from 
heaven that the Jewish institutions were abrogated, to take deci- 
sive steps to make the church and the synagogue two visibly dis- 






298 CHURCH OF CHRIST 






tinct bodies. The Jewish Christians universally regarded the 
temple with something of the same feeling which their unbelieving 
brethren of the synagogue cherished towards it : they looked upon 
it as still their own, — as the visible symbol and proof of the God 
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob being still their God in a sense in 
which He was not the God of other nations. As forming Christian 
synagogues, modelled after the Jewish institution, they felt or 
conceived themselves to be still under the shadow of the ancient 
vine ; a fond notion which, unfounded as it was, as long as it did 
not infringe any of the essential doctrines of the Gospel, the Apos- 
tles, we may be sure, would not rudely disturb. The dissolution 
of the Jewish polity, and temple services, however, produced a 
total alteration in the existing state of things, and for ever dissi- 
pated the hopes which it is probable many of the Christians of 
Palestine cherished, of seeing Judaism and Christianity combined 
into one system. By that great event God declared with a voice 
which could not be mistaken that the elder dispensation, having 
fulfilled its purpose, was at an end, and that thenceforward the 
Church of Christ — the true Israel of which the former had been 
but the type — was to pursue her own independent course. Every 
tie which bound the Christians of Jewish origin to the Mosaic in- 
stitutions was now snapt asunder ; and, consequently, they were 
ready to receive whatever further enlargement of the Church's 
polity the circumstances of the times might seem to call for, even 
though the new institution should have no counterpart in the 
ancient economy. That about the period named — viz. A. d. 70 — 
the circumstances of the Church did imperatively call for an ex- 
tension of its polity will hereafter be shown. There is every 
reason to believe, therefore, that during the lifetime of the great 
Apostle of the Gentiles the Church had no formal bishops ; that 
this new feature of Church polity emerged into view subsequently 
to the destruction of Jerusalem ; and that it emanated from those 
of the Apostles who survived that event. 

3. For however difficult it may be to establish, from Scripture 
alone, the apostolicity of episcopacy, we yet have the strongest 
^ grounds for believing it to be an apostolical institution. But the 
J^ weight of the evidence rests upon uninspired testimony ; or rather 
upon that testimony combined with the precedents furnished by 
Scripture. By the aid of history and Scripture combined, it may 
be satisfactorily made out that Apostles either instituted or sanc- 
tioned the episcopal form of Church government. 

There is no reason whatever why, in a matter of fact of this kind, 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 293 

we should refuse to listen to the voice of antiquity. There can be 
little doubt that the Apostles gave, on many points of order, direc- 
tions which have not reached us through the medium of Scripture ; 
just as our Lord, according to the testimony of St. John, did many 
things, the record of which the Gospels do not contain. Both in 
the one case and in the other, it is but a selection which, in Scrip- 
ture, the Holy Ghost has thought fit to give to the Church : it is 
only, therefore, what might have been expected, it may even have 
been designedly so ordered, that several of the apostolic regulations 
should come down to us by the channel of uninspired Church his- 
tory ; the testimony of which, if there is no reason to suspect it, is 
to be received like that of profane history in an analogous case. 
There is, no doubt, a wide difference, as regards binding authority, 
between those of the apostolic appointments which are recorded in 
Scripture and those the proof of which rests upon uninspired tes- 
timony. As regards the former, we are absolutely certain of the 
fact, inasmuch as we have it from the immediate followers of the 
Apostles, and from persons supernaturally preserved from error ; 
whereas, in the latter case, we depend upon the testimony of those 
who, for the most part, only transmit to us what they themselves 
had received from others, and who, being uninspired, were liable 
to human error and imperfection. When Ignatius, or Clement, 
tells us that such and such practices or institutions proceeded from 
the Apostles, or that they heard so from others, there is no prima 
facie reason why we should not give credence to their testimony ; 
but, inasmuch as we tread upon uninspired ground, we are com- 
pelled to be more circumspect in dealing with the evidence, and, 
above all, to consider carefully whether the alleged apostolical ordi- 
nance accords, in its spirit, with the undoubted principles of apos- 
tolical polity recorded in Holy Scripture. For to admit, without 
limitation, Augustin's maxim, that, whatever is universally preva- 
lent in the Church, must, for this sole reason, be ascribed to the 
Apostles, is to open a wide door to abuse ; stamping, as it does, 
with apostolic sanction, every superstitious and unscriptural prac- 
tice which can plead in its behalf antiquity and universality. * If 
the practice or institution in question is manifestly opposed to the 
spirit of the apostolic regulations as set forth in Scripture, we may 
be sure, however ancient it may profess to be, that it is nut apos- 
tolic ; in other words, that it has not really existed from the first. 

• "Sunt multa quae universa tenet ecclesia, et ob hoc ab apostolis preeccpta bono creduntur, 
quanquain scripta non reperiantur." — De Bap. cont. Don. 1. v. s. 31. 



300 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 















Furthermore, the appointments of the Apostles, which are actually 
recorded in Scripture, derive, from that very fact, an importance 
which does not belong to those which we gather from uninspired 
testimony, however unexceptionable that testimony may be. We 
may have equally strong grounds for believing that any two 
appointments are of apostolic origin ; and yet if one rests upon the 
testimony of Scripture, while the other has been handed down to us 
by uninspired history, they can by no means be placed in the same 
category : the difference in the medium of proof making a differ- 
ence between them, not as regards the fact, but as regards their 
binding force. This follows from the peculiar place which Scrip- 
ture holds in the Church of Christ. Scripture contains that portion 
of the apostolical teaching, and the apostolical appointments, which 
is necessary either to the being or the well-being of the Church : it is 
the gift of God to His people, comprehending all the essential princi- 
ples of Christianity, and belonging, like the Apostles, its authors, 
to the universal Church of every age ; on which account its omis- 
sions are as significant as its contents. An apostolical appoint- 
ment, therefore, which is found recorded in Scripture may be pre- 
sumed to be of permanent use, and to possess a binding force, not 
so much because it is apostolic, for this another ordinance not found 
in Scripture may equally be, as because it is recorded in Scripture, 
because it forms part of that divinely superintended selection of 
the apostolic practices which we possess in the inspired Word. 
The apostolicity of each may be equally undoubted: it is the vehi- 
cle of transmission that makes the difference. The application of 
this principle admits of degrees. Appointments which are so dis- 
tinctly stated in Scripture to have proceeded from the Apostles as 
to need no confirmation of testimony from other quarters, must 
be considered as more necessary to the Church than those which 
require extra- Scriptural evidence to establish their claims; for we 
must believe that even the proportions in which Scripture unfolds 
divine truth, the relative distinctness with which it records the facts 
of early church history, are the result of that divine wisdom which 
presided over its composition. On this ground, it should seem that 
presbyters and deacons, if a comparison is to be instituted between 
the three orders, are more essential to the Church than bishops, 
inasmuch as Scripture records the apostolic institution of the former 
more distinctly than it does that of the latter. 

With these limitations, the testimony of the early Church to 
the apostolicity of a then existing practice may be admitted as 
readily as any other human testimony to a matter of fact. In the 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 301 

particular case with which we are now concerned, this testimony 
is as cogent as can well be conceived. It is not merely that the 
Fathers unanimously ascribe the institution of episcopacy to the 
Apostles ; the moment we pass out of Scripture into the field of 
uninspired history we are met by the fact of the universal pre- 
valence of that form of church government, a fact which can only 
be satisfactorily accounted for by the supposition of its having 
proceeded from the Apostles. The evidence, it has been seen, will 
not permit us to assign to episcopacy proper an earlier date than 
A. D. 70, or some period subsequent to St. Paul's martyrdom; and 
yet it is evident from the epistles of Ignatius (a. d. 107, or, accord- 
ing to others, A. D. 116) that in his time the episcopal polity had 
become firmly and universally established : how improbable it is 
that, unsupported by apostolic institution, it would have prevailed 
so speedily and universally needs not to be pointed out. But this 
is not all. In the early ecclesiastical historians the succession of 
bishops in most of the considerable churches is traced up to the 
very times of the Apostles; traditions the authenticity of which 
there is no reason, except in those particular points in which they 
seem to clash with the facts of Scripture, to call in question. 
Thus we are told that St. Paul appointed Timothy bishop of 
Ephesus, and Titus bishop of Crete : * it is not, indeed, for the 
reasons previously given, likely that the Apostle himself conferred 
the episcopal office upon them ; but nothing is more probable than 
that, when episcopacy was introduced, Timothy and Titus were 
fixed as formal bishops in the churches in which they had already 
exercised quasi-episcopal functions. The same is very likely to 
have been the case with Linus and others, whose names occur in 
the New Testament, and whom history records to have been the 
first bishops of their respective sees. From among the immediate 
companions of the Apostles the first bishops would naturally be 
chosen. 

The reasons why we retain episcopacy may be briefly summed 
up as follows when we open the ecclesiastical remains, — say of 
the 4th century, — we find no other form of polity anywhere 
existing, whether in the Catholic Church, or in the bodies dissi- 
dent therefrom. The same fact meets us in every preceding cen- 
tury, up to a period when one at least of the Apostles, — St. John, 

* Not, however, by the accurate Eusebius, who merely records the tradition that they 
were the first bishops of Ephesus and Crete, without mentioning from whom they derived 
their appointments. Tipdfledj yt fifiv r»Jf iv ^Btpcaot napoiiciai loropurai np>~>ros Hi* briaicmhi 
tiXtjxivat' <!>$ Kal Tiros ruiv tirl Kpnrtjs UicXritTitav. — Lib. iii. c. 4. 



302 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 












— must have been surviving. "We find the Christian writers of 
each age unanimous in assigning to that form of church polity an 
apostolical origin. At length we come to Scripture itself. Here, 
indeed, it seems difficult to discover a formal episcopate ; neverthe- 
less we find presbyters and deacons, and the Apostles over both : 
we find St. Paul delegating to individuals a portion of his apos- 
tolical authority, the functions which they were to exercise closely 
resembling those which formal bishops afterwards exercised. If 
the Apocalyptic angels are to be considered as individuals in 
ecclesiastical office, we may fairly infer, from the mention of them, 
that, at that time, each church was presided over by one chief 
pastor. So far, then, from there being anything in the episcopal 
regimen which, from its disagreement with Scriptural precedent, 
might lead us to hesitate in giving credence to the witness of tra- 
dition affirming it to be of apostolical institution, there are posi- 
tive data in Scripture which, if not conclusive on that point, are 
yet sufficient to warrant us in saying that it is agreeable to the 
mind of the Apostles. Thus, no antecedent objection standing in 
the way, full scope is left to the force of the uninspired testimony 
which, under such circumstances, becomes irresistible. No reason- 
able doubt can be entertained that episcopacy proper took its rise 
at some period between A. D. 70 and A. D. 100; and as little that it 
was either established or sanctioned by the Apostles then living, 
especially the survivor of the whole body, — St. John, — whose 
residence in Asia Minor, where tradition fixes the beginnings of 
the episcopate, points him out as in all probability that one of the 
twelve to whom the Church owes this extension of her polity, the 
only one, beyond presbyters and deacons, which can make any 
pretence to an apostolical origin. 

As long as the advocates for episcopacy are content to rest their 
cause upon post-apostolic testimony, their position is impregnable : 
it is only when they attempt to prove it from Scripture alone that 
the argument fails to convince. Better at once to acknowledge 
that the institution is traceable to the Apostles chiefly through the 
channel of uninspired history than, by insisting upon insufficient 
Scriptural evidence, to bring discredit upon the whole argument, 
as an injudicious advocate, by undertaking to prove too much, 
often damages a really strong cause. True it is that, in making 
such an acknowledgment, episcopalians abandon the high ground 
of a divine law, perpetually binding; but they only abandon 
what is untenable, while the argument for the retention of the 
episcopal polity remains unaffected. For it does not follow that 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 303 

because we cannot pronounce this polity to be essential to the 
Church, and are even compelled to prove its apostolicity by extra- 
Scriptural evidence, we are therefore at liberty to reject it. Every 
institution which we have reason to regard as an apostolical one, 
by whatever road we may have arrived at that conclusion, comes 
to us with a prima facie claim upon our acceptance, and may not 
be lightly rejected. "It is clear that the whole argument should 
be confined to the Scriptures ; " so writes a recent opponent of 
episcopacy,* availing himself of the concession of his antagonist, 
bishop Onderdonk, that, " the claim of episcopacy to be of divine 
origin, and therefore obligatory upon the Church, rests funda- 
mentally on the one question, Has it the authority of Scripture? 
If it has not, it is not necessarily binding." We shall hereafter 
examine whether, even if it had the express authority of Scrip- 
ture, the inference could be at once drawn that it is immutably 
binding upon the Church ; meanwhile it may be observed that no 
episcopalian who understands the strength of his own position 
will concede that, when the question is not concerning the per- 
petual obligation of episcopacy as a divinely prescribed polity, 
but concerning its apostolicity, the argument is to be confined to 
Scripture alone. Nothing can be more irrational than entirely to 
disconnect ourselves from the early Church, as if in each succes- 
sive age Christianity had to be begun de novo; or as if there were 
no other evidence of apostolic practices but that which is derivable 
from Scripture, and no medium between affirming an institution 
to be necessarily binding, and rejecting it. The indispensable 
part which the testimony of the early Church bears in authenticat- 
ing Scripture itself, proves that it never was the Divine intention 
that, annihilating the intervening centuries between ourselves and 
the Apostles, we should confine our attention solely to Scripture, 
and reject as worthless whatever cannot be found there recorded : 
only let us bear in mind that the moment we pass beyond the in- 
, spired "Word, we pass from the region of what is divine and essen- 
tial to the lower ground of what is, or is not, as the case may be, 
probably apostolical. By descending from the higher, and, as it 
should seem, untenable ground of a divine prescription to this 
lower one, the episcopalian gains immensely in the real strength of 
his argument; and as long as he is content with maintaining that 
episcopacy is an apostolical institution, and therefore to bo retained 
by churches which would follow the apostolical model, it will be 
impossible to dislodge him from his position. 

• Barnes' Apostolic Church, p. 10. 



304 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 




Nor is it a fair statement which the same writer makes that " it 
is a point of essential importance in this controversy, that the 
burden of proof lies on the friends of episcopacy ;" unless, indeed, 
by the " friends of episcopacy" be meant those who put forth 
claims respecting it which virtually consign all non-episcopal 
churches to the un covenanted mercies of Grod. Here, again, mod- 
eration is strength. If we are content to take the lower ground, 
and to maintain that episcopacy is to be retained because, though 
not expressly recorded in Scripture, the apostolicity of its origin 
may be otherwise established, the burden of proof is unquestion- 
ably thrown upon the opponent. We retain episcopacy because 
it has been handed down to us, without a break, from the times 
of the Apostles : the presumption that we are right in doing so is 
entirely with us : we are in possession of the field : and he who 
would introduce another form of polity must be prepared to prove 
that episcopacy is intrinsically, and without reference to the abuses 
to which, in common with all forms of church government, it is 
liable, unscriptural. 

But we have not yet fully mastered the subject in all its bear- 
ings. Let it be supposed that it had been distinctly recorded in 
Scripture that episcopacy, like the presbyterate and diaconate, 
proceeded from the Apostles ; could we, even then, at once infer 
that it is of divine institution, and a matter of perpetual obliga- 
tion ? Or, to put the same question under a more general form, 
is every appointment which can be proved from Scripture to have 
emanated from the Apostles to be ipso facto deemed a divine law ? 
So much depends upon our entertaining just views respecting the 
nature of the Apostolic appointments, and so illustrative of the 
spirit of Christianity is the mode in which those appointments 
have been transmitted to us in Scripture, that it is worth our while 
to consider this point more attentively. 

Every one acquainted with our elder apologists for episcopacy 
will have observed that when they have, as they conceive, proved 
from Scripture that the Apostles instituted that form of church 
polity, they take for granted that they have proved it to be of 
divine original, and of perpetual obligation. * Nor is this mode 

• /<;. g. Bishop Hall indites a treatise which he calls "Episcopacy hy Divine Right;" but 
all that he really proves is that it is apostolical. So bishop Taylor. In a subsequent 
work, however, on the same subject, bishop Hall does seem to recognise the distinction 
between a divine law and an apostolical institution: — "Let me beseech the reader to consider 
seriously of this difference, in the mistaking of which I have not a little unjustly suffored: 
and to remember how I have expressed it in my 'Remonstrance/ fetching the pedigree of 
episcopacy from apostolical (and therefore in that right, divine) institution, and interpreting 



THE UXITY OF THE CHURCH. 305 

of arguing confined to episcopalians. The presbyterians of former 
times, if not of the present, contended, on precisely the same 
ground, for the divine right of the presbyterial polity. It has been 
already intimated that the point tacitly assumed by both parties 
requires proof; and a more accurate examination of the subject 
may, perhaps, lead us to the conclusion that even those of the 
apostolic appointments which are distinctly recorded in Scripture 
are by no means to be necessarily regarded as divine laws. 

It must be granted, indeed, that the apostolical institutions 
which Scripture records come to us with a strong presumption in 
favour of their perpetual use ; not so much, as has been already 
observed, because they are certainly known to be apostolic, as 
because they form part of the contents of Scripture. He would 
be a bold man who should maintain that it is a matter of indiffer- 
ence whether or not we adhere in regulations of polity to Scrip- 
tural precedent. Nevertheless the remarkable circumstance is to 
be borne in mind, that not one of the appointments of the Apostles 
in matters of polity have been transmitted to us in Scripture in 
the form of legislative enactments, but simply as recorded facts. For 
example, the inspired history informs us that, as a matter of fact, 
the Apostles ordained elders for every church ; but no law upon 
the subject, purporting to emanate from the Apostles, can be found 
in Scripture. To their appointments the Apostles append no im- 
perative declarations, making them immutably binding upon the 
Church. Let their mode of proceeding in this respect be compared 
with the mode in which the law of Moses was delivered, and the 
difference between the two cases will be apparent. The Mosaic 
appointments were not only recorded, but commanded ; the apos- 
tolic regulations are recorded, but not made matter of law : the 
Apostles do not absolutely bind the Church of every age to follow 
the precedents which they set. When we consider the natural 
tendency in the promulgators of a new religion to pursue an oppo- 
site course, we can only account for the mode of proceeding 
adopted by the Apostles by the supposition of their being under 
a divine guidance, which withheld them from what might have 

myself not to understand by 'divine right' any express law of God requiring it upon the 
absolute necessity of the being of a Church, but an institution of Apostles, inspired by the 
Holy Ghost, warranting it where it is, and requiring it where it may bo had."— Dcfeueo of 
the Humble Remonstrance, sect. 6. It is a pity that the good bishop did not, to prevent 
misconception, explain in his former treatise what he meant l>y ''episcopacy by divine 
right; " for it should seem that whatever is really jure divino must be of the nature of a divine 
law. 

20 






306 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 






given occasion to the notion that the essential being of the Church 
lies in the polity, which, under apostolic guidance, she assumed .* 

It may be urged, in extenuation of this argument, that the Apos- 
tles haye no more attached a perpetual sanction, or character of 
immutability, to the doctrines which they preached, than to the 
appointments which they made ; consequently if, on this ground, 
we withhold from the latter the character of divine enactments, we 
must also suppose the former to be not intrinsically immutable. 
But the important distinction between a doctrine and an enactment 
must ever be borne in mind. A doctrine once revealed is, from 
the nature of the case, eternally true and unalterable ; but a mere 
positive appointment, being in itself indifferent, requires an expres- 
sion of the will of the lawgiver to make it unalterably binding. 
For example, the doctrine of the Unity of God, declared by Moses, 
became at once an article of faith essential and immutable; being 
always true it is always necessary ; but the institution of the pass- 
over, being a mere positive appointment, needed a law to be 
attached to it to make it perpetually binding upon the Jews, and 
such a law was actually promulgated. In like manner when the 
Apostles declared that Christ is God, or that we are justified by 
faith without the deeds of the law, these statements, being doc- 
trines, carried with them their own eternal and immutable sanction : 
not so, the institutions of the presbyterate and diaconate ; for there 
is no absurdity in conceiving that some other polity differing in 
form might have been given to the Church. Appointments of this 
kind, if they are to be of perpetual obligation, need, like those of 
the Mosaic economy, a declaration to that effect ; which since the 
Apostles have not appended to their own institutions, we gather 
that the latter, though by no means alterable at the caprice of sub- 
sequent generations, were not intended to have the force of divine 
laws, or to be absolutely immutable. 

It is worthy of remark that not only were all the great doctrines 
of Christianity enunciated by Christ himself, the Apostles being 
but divinely guided expositors of what their Lord had previously 
delivered, but that the only two ordinances which symbolize car- 
dinal doctrines of the Gospel, and directly concern the Christian's 
communion with God — viz. the two sacraments — were likewise 



* The reader who wishes to see how uninspired apostles, if the expression may be allowed, 
would have proceeded in matters of polity, will do well to consult the spurious Apostolical 
Canons and Constitutions. The subject-matter of these compositions being put out of view, 
let him mark the form in which they are cast,— which is that of legislative enactment, not, 
as in Scripture, of historical precedent. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 307 

of Christ's own institution. Whatever relates to the Church, viewed 
as the mystical body of Christ, — i.e. in its essential, eternal, and 
immutable character, — was not left even to the inspired Apostles 
to declare or establish: the only sphere of agency in which they 
appear as really independent originators is in the affairs of the 
Church, considered in its earthly and temporary aspect, — in the 
settlement and organization of Christian societies, and regulations 
of order. And yet, though from their nature and import we should 
antecedently be led to infer that the sacraments are of perpetual 
obligation, it is remarkable that they are also declared to be so ; the 
original terms of the institution of baptism plainly implying that 
it is to be practised "even unto the end of the world," and the 
design of the Lord's Supper being declared to be " to show forth 
the Lord's death till He come." 

Nor should it be forgotten that several of the apostolic regula- 
tions, even of those most distinctly recorded in Scripture, have 
been, by the general consent of the Church, abandoned as no 
longer suitable to altered circumstances; while others have been 
modified. The most striking instance of this is the well-known 
decree of the first apostolic council at Jerusalem respecting the 
obligation of the Gentile converts to abstain from things strangled 
and from blood. * Nothing was Avanting to give solemnity to the 
publication of this decree. It proceeded not from one Apostle 
merely, but from several in Council ; and the Holy Ghost Himself 
is declared to be its author. Yet, by the application of certain 
general principles laid down in St. Paul's epistles, f this decree has 
been long since set aside — by the Western Church at least — as no 
longer binding. In like manner, the apostolic practices of anoint- 
ing the sick with oil, the kiss of charity, and the primitive love- 
feasts, \ nave Deen either abandoned or modified. An instance of 
an order of ministers, undoubtedly apostolic, yet no longer formally 
ting in the Church, is that of the "deaconesses," of whom 
mention is made in St. Paul's epistles. May we not suppose that 
instances like these have been recorded for the very purpose of 
teaching us that apostolical appointments, even those the record of 
which is embalmed in Scripture, are not intrinsically unalterable, 
and may either be modified, or altogether laid aside, when a cnange 
of circumstances renders them no longer necessary or salutary 

* Acts, xv. 

t Rom. xiv.; 1 Cor. viii.; Col. ii. 16-23. 

X Jas. v. 14 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 20.: Jud. xii. 



'0' 



308 



CHUKCH OF CHRIST. 


















The view which a modern writer takes of this subject will pro- 
bably commend itself to the judgment of most readers— viz. that 
the apostolic appointments, being those of inspired men, must have 
been the very best for those times, the best under then existing cir- 
cumstances ; and differ herein from the regulations of uninspired 
men, which may, or may not, be the best for the time being. * As 
long, therefore, as the circumstances which gave rise to the Apos- 
tolic appointments remain the same, those appointments are to be 
adhered to ; what was best for the Apostolic age will, circumstances 
remaining the same, be best now. But it is conceivable that changes 
may take place in the social or political world such as to render 
the original ordinances of the Apostles inapplicable, or even unsuit- 
able, to the altered state of things ; and if such a case should arise, 
these ordinances not being declared to be of the nature of a divine 
law, the letter must give place to the spirit, and the Church may 
lawfully exercise, in modifying existing practices, or introducing 
new ones, a power * of discretion which the Apostles themselves 
would doubtless, under similar circumstances, have exercised. 
For " where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty ;" and he who 
had learned "unto the Jews to become as a Jew," "to them that" 
were "without law as without law," "to the weak as weak," and 
"all things to all men that " he "might by all means save some," f 
would, we may be sure, have had no scruple, did sufficient reason 
appear for so doing, in varying his own appointments so as to meet 
the exigencies of the age. 

An illustration bearing upon this subject may be drawn from 
the epistles of the Apostle just mentioned. In 1 Cor. vii., he dis- 
cusses the question whether it is better for Christians to marry 
or to remain unmarried ; and decides, where there is no natural 
hindrance, in favour of the latter state of life. But throughout 
the discussion he takes care to caution his readers against mistak- 
ing what was a judgment, "good for the present distress," for a 
divine law, perpetually binding, and binding every individual. 
The judgment was an apostolic one, given under the guidance of 
the Spirit of God (ver. 25. 40.), and, therefore, in itself the best for 
the existing circumstances of the Church : but it was accompanied 
with two important limitations. The first, that, even under the 
existing circumstances, no yoke was thereby meant to be imposed 
upon individuals, so that if any one notwithstanding the Apostle's 



* Hinds, "History of Christianity" &c. part 3. c. 2. 
t 1 Cor. ix. 20, 21. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 309 

judgment, should marry, he did not sin (ver. 28.): the second, 
that, under a different state of things, the rule itself might not 
hold good • for this is plainly implied in the observation, that his 
counsel was "good for the present necessity." That St. Paul's 
rule respecting marriage was, in the case of those who could 
receive it, the best for that particular time we must believe, if we 
believe in the plenary inspiration of Scripture ; and therefore we 
must believe that (with the same limitation as regards individuals) 
it is the best for every similar conjuncture of circumstances, to the 
end of time: but the possibility of its becoming inapplicable is 
plainly intimated by the Apostle himself, and, under the ordinary 
circumstances of the Church, it does seem to be inapplicable. 

St. Paul's judgment on this point appears to supply the principle 
upon which all the Apostolic appointments, including those relat- 
ing to the ministry, were made, and the light in which they are to 
be regarded. As proceeding from inspired Apostles, they were 
the best for the Church of that age, and, until the contrary be 
clearly proved, must be presumed to be the best for every age : he 
who would innovate upon them must be prepared to show that 
the circumstances of the Church are such as to render them no 
longer applicable. In some instances, as we have seen, the Church 
has availed herself of the discretion allowed her; in others the 
necessity of a change has never as yet been made evident. There 
never has been a time in which the apostolic orders of the minis- 
try were not as necessary as they were in the Apostles' times ; 
nor is it easy to conceive that such a time can ever arrive. They 
have ever remained, and doubtless ever will remain, in the Church. 
But they have not been imposed as divine laws, nor has the cove- 
nanted grace of Christ been inseparably, or at all, connected with 
them; consequently, to deviate from them, and thus needlessly 
to break the chain which connects us with the apostolic age, may 
indeed be a sin, greater or less according to circumstances, but it 
is not the sin of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. There is nothing 
in this peculiarity of the New Testament institutions which is not 
perfectlv consistent ' with the view already taken of the funda- 
mental differences between the law and the Gospel. If Christianity 
be primarily a life of faith in Christ, and the Church of Christ hi 
her true being in that internal life, it is only what we should hi 
expected that as regards external regulations of polity, even tli< 
of Apostles, she would be left comparatively unfettered. Tims is 
the Gospel fitted to win its way in every variety of race and 
climate; invariable in essentials, but admitting of variation in 




















310 



CHUKCH OF CHKIST. 



subordinate matters; ever holding to the same general principles 
even in polity, but permitting different exemplifications of them ; 
like its Divine Author, "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever," 
yet presenting the same diversity in circumstantials which every 
kind of real unity, — that is, every kind of unity which is founded 
in nature, and is not a merely artificial production, — exhibits not 
less in the works of the natural, than in those of the spiritual, 
creation. 

The Catholic theory of episcopacy being set aside as irrecon- 
cileable with the facts of the case, it remains to inquire whether 
we cannot, without the aid of that theory, satisfactorily account 
for the rise and progress of this form of ecclesiastical polity. This 
seems a task of no great difficulty. Episcopacy was bestowed 
upon the Church when, and no sooner than, the want of some 
such institution became felt. Like all the other regulations of the 
Apostles in matters of polity, it was instituted, not to give being 
to, but to meet the exigencies of, the Church ; not because without 
it the Church was essentially imperfect, but because an extension 
of its organization had become desirable. The causes which gave 
rise to episcopacy were partly positive, and partly negative ; or it 
may be regarded as, in one point of view, the manifestation of the 
unseen, essential, unity of Christians, and in another, as a provi- 
sion against the evils of disunion, whether existing, or in prospect. 

They form but a low estimate of the power of union inherent 
in Christianity, who deem it necessary to allege a divine prescrip- 
tion for the forms into which the Church life of the age immedi- 
ately succeeding that of the Apostles threw itself, episcopacy 
included. Even Eomish theologians of the higher class — such as 
Moehler and others — have learned to take a truer view of the 
matter, and justly trace the whole of the higher organization of 
the Church, such as we find it in the fourth century, to the 
natural tendency of the strongest of all internal principles of 
unity — "the unity of the Spirit" — to produce a visible expres- 
sion of itself. By means of this invisible tie, each Christian 
becomes one with all other Christians ; each church naturally 
seeks an expression of its fellowship with other churches, 
acknowledging the same Lord, and professing the same faith ; and 
the whole Church feels that Christ's prayer for the unity of His 
followers is but imperfectly realized, if there exist among its com- 
ponent portions only the invisible unity of the Spirit, without 
that appreciable inter-communion, in whatever way it may be 
exhibited, by which the "world" may be led to "believe" that 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 311 

Jesus was the Sent of God. In the institution of the episcopate, 
the Church made the first advance towards the attainment of a 
visible expression of her internal unity. 

Christianity, as it appears in the New Testament, knows nothing 
of the atomistic theory of modern independentism. There can be 
little doubt that, even in the apostolic age, the church of each con- 
siderable city — such as Rome or Ephesus — consisted, not of one 
congregation, but of several, who were collectively styled the 
church of that place ; certain it is that such was the case towards 
the close of the first century. It could not be otherwise. The 
expansive power of Christianity caused it to break forth on all 
sides ; and speedily the original congregation, or, in modern lan- 
guage, the mother church, of each city gave birth to other so- 
cieties of Christians in the surrounding neighbourhood. In this 
way there were probably, in each locality, many distinct assem- 
blages of worshippers ; but, however numerous these assemblages 
may have been, they still formed but one Church, and were 
presided over, not each by its own isolated pastor, but by a college 
of presbyters, who, collectively, superintended the affairs of the 
whole society, or rather district. No notion is more at variance 
with the spirit of apostolic Christianity than that of societies of 
Christians existing in the same neighbourhood, but not in commu- 
nion with each other, and not under a common government. The 
primitive Church of Jerusalem may be regarded as, in this respect, 
the model of the apostolic churches in general. The number of 
converts in that city, which rendered it impossible for them to as- 
semble in one place for the exercise of public worship, must have 
given rise to a division into congregations ; yet, in the inspired 
history, but one ministerial body is mentioned in connexion with 
this Church, — viz. the college of "elders" — who, under the 
quasi-episcopate of James the less, appear to have regulated its 
affairs in common, forming a single deliberative assembly, in 
which all matters of moment were discussed and decided. An 
arrangement by which an effectual safeguard was interposed 
against the feeling of dependence, and helplessness, under which the 
pastor, who is in a state of isolation, labours, and which lias been 
found by experience to operate prejudicially both upon his own 
spiritual interests and those of the flock over whom he presides. 
In the primitive Church, each presbyter felt himself sustained in 
his dealings with the Christian people by the whole weight of au- 
thority belonging to the college of which he was a member; and 
the people, on their part, learned to look upon their pastors, not 



312 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









as creatures of their own, but as officers of the Church, occupying 
a recognised position and independent rights. In the apostolic 
council (Acts, xv.) we see the whole Church, consisting of " the 
elders," "the brethren," or representatives of the people, and those 
of the Apostles who were then in Jerusalem, discussing, in united 
and harmonious operation, the important question upon which 
differences of opinion had arisen. 

Ifhis union of the congregations of a certain district under a 
common presbytery sufficed, for a time, to satisfy the cravings of 
the Christian mind for social combination. But a senate, or pres- 
bytery, is, at best, an imperfect exponent of social or corporate 
sentiment, which ever loves to see itself embodied in a person. It 
is only a person that can call forth, and attract to himself, the 
emotions of love and veneration to which Christianity gives pecu- 
liar scope ; it is only around a person that men are found to coalesce 
heartily for a common purpose. The idea therefore of a centre of 
unity for each church must have soon presented itself to the minds 
of Christians, and the more strongly, the greater the number of 
congregations in a given circuit; for where there is a strong na- 
tural impulse to unity, a multiplicity of parts, instead of diminish- 
ing, adds intensity to it. How far this tendency to centralization 
inherent in Christianity may have succeeded in producing a living 
centre of unity previous to the apostolic appointment of bishops it 
is impossible to say ; but it is extremely probable that from a very 
early period an informal episcopate had of itself sprung up in each 
church, — that is, that in each there existed some one presbyter, 
who, on account of his personal qualifications, exercised an unde- 
fined influence over both presbyters and people, and served un- 
consciously as a visible bond of unity to the whole body ; and that 
the Apostles only gave a fixed form and an Apostolic sanction to 
an arrangement which, in rudiment at least, they found already 
existing. In the eloquent language of Moehler, " the craving of 
the faithful in Christ for combination cannot rest satisfied until it 
sees itself expressed in some type, or representation. The bishop 
is the visible expression of this longing, — the personification of 
the mutual love of the Christians of a given locality, — the mani- 
festation, and the living centre, of that Christian spirit which ever 
strives after unity." * 

If we may suppose that an informal episcopate of the kind just 
mentioned had spontaneously arisen in the principal churches of 



* Einheit in dcr Kirche, p. 181 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. olo 

Christendom, we shall have what the synagogue fails to supply us 
with ; — an historical basis for the episcopate. Certainly this sup- 
position is more probable than that adopted by several writers of 
eminence, who trace episcopacy to the practice, common in all 
deliberative assemblies, of selecting an individual, superior to the 
rest either in age? station, or capacity, to act as president for the 
time being : the authority of this presiding presbyter at first, as 
they conceive, ceasing with the occasion which gave rise to it, but 
gradually assuming a more permanent character, and a wider 
sphere of exercise, until at length he came to be styled, by way 
of distinction, "the overseer" — a tmaxtftog.* Moreover, thus 
possibly may the statements of Jerome be explained, who, as is 
well known, affirms that episcopacy is derived, not from a divine 
precept, but from the custom of the Church, and yet cannot 
be supposed to intend to contradict the unanimous tradition of 
antiquity, that it is of apostolical origin. It may be that the 
rudiment of episcopacy was, in fact, the spontaneous production 
of the Church — the result of the instinctive tendency of the Chris- 
tians of each locality to gather round a visible centre ; and yet 
that the formal institution of the episcopal office was an act of 
apostolic authority. The general spirit in which the Apostles 
proceeded in fixing the polity of the Church, permitting, as they 
did, the Christian society to develope as much as possible out of 
itself the elements of its visible organization, forbids the supposi- 
tion that in establishing this new office they instituted one hitherto 
unknown even in idea, and without any existing rudimental basis. 
But, whatever be the degree of weight that may belong to this 
hypothesis, certain it is that the idea of a visible centre of unity 
is one which naturally arises wherever there exists a community 
of Christians. In the case of the episcopate, as in every other, 
the visible organization of the Church developed itself from within 
outwards, not vice versa. If the Apostles, when they instituted 
the new office, had no external rudiment of it before their eyes, 
they yet found an internal groundwork present, and only <_: 
visible expression to a pre-existing sentiment. Episcopacy was 
given to the Church, not as a law imposed from without, bn 
suitable expression of the inner spirit; not (to adopt the Ian 
of a profound writer) as "a shape superinduced upon a pi 

* Mosh. De Reb. Christian. S«c. I. s. 41.; Calvin. Institut. lib. iv. c. 4. s. 2.; N 
Allgemein. Gesch. 1. p. 292. 






314 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 









material, but an organic form"* thrown out naturally by the 
energy of the life within. It may confidently be affirmed that, 
where Christianity is not enfeebled by adverse influences, its 
visible organization will always tend to something of an episcopal 
form, however much the name of episcopacy may be repudiated. 

But, besides being positively the natural expression of the 
inner sentiment of union existing among Christians, episcopacy 
is to be viewed as a safeguard against the evils of division, 
whether among the pastors of the Church, or the Christian people 
at large. The testimony of Jerome on this point is well known : 
" Before there were factions in religion, arid the people began to 
say, I am of Paul, I of Apollo, and I of Cephas, the churches 
were governed by a common council of presbyters. But when 
every man thought those whom he had baptized to be his own, 
and not Christ's, it was decreed throughout the world that one 
chosen out of the presbyters should be set above the rest, to 
whom the whole care of the Church should appertain, that thus 
the seeds of division might be rooted out." f In fact, the state of 
the Church about the period to which the institution of the 
episcopate is to be assigned — viz. A. D. 70 — was such as must 
naturally have given rise to apprehensions that, when once the 
controlling authority of the Apostles should be removed, Christ- 
endom would become a scene of intestine strife, and the pure 
doctrine of the Gospel perish amidst the corruptions of heresy. 
Both these noxious influences were, as we know from St. Paul's 
epistles, actively at work during the Apostle's own lifetime ; and 
to his prophetic eye the future prospects of the Church were still 
more gloomy. J The parties which divided the Christian commu- 
nity were, as we may gather from the instance of the Corinthian 
Church, in which four rival factions contended for the superiority, 
very numerous; but two principal ones were to be found, not only 
there, but in almost every Christian society, which derived their 

* " There is a difference between form as proceeding, and shape as superinduced ; the latter 
is either the death or the imprisonment of the thing ; the former is its self-witnessing sphere 
of agency."— " Confounding mechanical regularity with organic form. The form is mechanic 
when on any given material we impress a predetermined form, not necessarily arising out 
of the properties of the material ; as. when to a mass of clay we give whatever shape we 
wish it to retain when hardened. The organic form, on the other hand, is innate : it shapes, 
it developes itself from within, and the fulness of its developement is one and the same with 
the perfection of its outward form."— Coleridge, Remains, vol. i. p. 229. ; ii. p. 67. Preg- 
nant words, which furnish the clue to a right apprehension of the history of the Church 
throughout its whole course. 

t Quoted by bishop Bilson, Perpetual Government, Ac. p. 268. 

% See Acts, xi. 29, 30.; 2 Tim. iii. 1-H.j iv. 3, 4. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 315 

distinctive appellations from the leading Apostles — St. Peter and 
St. Paul. Peter, though he had been taught by special revelation 
that, under the Gospel dispensation, there was to be no difference 
between Jew and Gentile, was by no means, as the narrative in 
Gal. ii. 11. 14. proves, able at once to subdue his Jewish prejudices, 
and enter fully into the universal spirit of Christianity. From his 
greater veneration, therefore, for the Mosaic law, as well as from 
his being especially the Apostle of the circumcision, the Jewish 
Christians, particularly that section of them which was most 
zealous for the law, adopted, however unwarrantably, his name as 
the watchword of their party. What the views of this party in 
general were is easily gathered from St. Paul's epistles. It has 
been already observed, that the first Jewish converts were far 
from conceiving that in becoming Christians they were ceasing to 
be Jews : the historical connexion between Judaism and Christian- 
ity forbad such a notion. The same Old Testament Scriptures, to 
which the Apostles appealed as furnishing the evidence of pro- 
phecy for Christianity, declared also the divine origin of the 
Mosaic institutions; which, therefore, as long as no divine inti- 
mation of their having been abrogated was given, the Jewish 
Christians naturally conceived to be still in force. The moderate 
section of this party was content that the law should be con- 
sidered binding only upon believers of the circumcision, the 
Gentile converts being exempted from the necessity of observing 
it; but the more zealous among them entertained views which 
were directly opposed to the fundamental principles of the Gospel. 
These latter held that the ceremonial law was obligatory not only 
upon the Jewish, but upon the Gentile converts ; and made sub- 
mission to the rite of circumcision an essential condition of 
salvation. Their first appearance was at Antioch ; their proceed- 
ings in which place gave occasion to the Apostolic council at 
Jerusalem. By the decision of this council, which released the 
Gentile Christians from the obligation of the legal ordinances, 
the Judaizing teachers were for a time silenced ; but the dispute 
soon broke out again, and with increased virulence. Nor was it 
confined, as before, to certain localities; in every church, in 
which, on account of its mixed composition, they found a Jewish 
element to work upon, the zealots of the law endeavoured to 
propagate their tenets, and, as we learn from the epistles to the 
Galatians and Colossians, with considerable success. As might be 
expected, St. Paul, their chief antagonist, waa regarded by them 
with aversion and dread ; and it became part of their plan of 














I 



316 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



operation to institute unfavourable comparisons between him and 
the Apostles who had seen Christ in the flesh, with the view of 
throwing doubt upon the reality of his apostolic mission.* 

Among the Christians of purely heathen origin, the peculiar 
type of sentiment just mentioned could not ; of course, gain a foot- 
ing. Unfettered by Jewish associations, they threw themselves, 
without an effort, into their great teacher's views ; for their former 
polytheism had never had any real hold upon their minds. But, 
as one extreme usually calls forth an opposite one, the enmity of 
the ultra-Jewish party towards St. Paul and his doctrine appears 
to have produced, among the Gentile converts, a counter-move- 
ment, which exhibited itself in the formation of a party, adopting 
the name of the Apostle of the Gentiles as its watchword, and 
professing to attach peculiar weight to his opinions. What the 
dogmatical tendencies of this party were we are not distinctly in- 
formed ; but we may presume that, as their opponents unduly 
magnified the authority of the Mosaic law, they, on the contrary, 
displayed a tendency to depreciate the Old Testament Scriptures, 
and to sever Christianity from its historical basis — the institu- 
tions of Moses. Their practical error consisted in a want of due 
consideration for the scruples of their weaker brethren, whom 
they were too often inclined to regard with contempt, and to 
offend by an inconsiderate use of their Christian liberty.f 

This was the state of things towards the latter part of the 
Apostle Paul's career ; and it threatened serious consequences to 
Christianity. In most of the considerable churches two parties 
existed side by side, which, from the zeal with which they main- 
tained and propagated their peculiar opinions, must necessarily 
have lost sight, more and more, of the great truths which they 
held in common, and assumed a hostile attitude towards each 
other. The result, which there was too much reason to appre- 
hend, was an open schism with all its attendant evils. Qn the 
one hand, the churches which were composed exclusively, or prin- 
cipally, of converted heathens would gradually lose their feeling 
of Christian fellowship with those in which Jewish converts pre- 
dominated, and especially with the churches of Palestine ; while 
the latter would be in danger of openly relapsing into Judaism. 
That this latter was no imaginary danger is evident from the 
epistle to the Hebrews, in which the persons addressed appear as 
wavering in their allegiance to Christ, even to the extent of no 



1 Cor. ix. : 2 Cor. x. and xi. 



t See Rom. c. 14.; 1 Cor. viii. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 317 

longer frequenting the public assemblies of the Church, * and 
which was written with the view of proving to them that the 
shadows of the law had their completion and fulfilment in the 
verities of the Gospel. 

But, besides the danger of schism, there was another which, at 
the period of which we are speaking, threatened the Church, — 
viz. the outbreak of that prolific swarm of heresies which ap- 
peared almost simultaneously with the preaching of the Gospel, 
and which left no doctrine of Christianity unassailed. Many of 
these early heresies are alluded to by St. Paul; and, from the 
general characteristics which he assigns to them, we gather that 
they were, for the most part, different forms of Gnosticism, the 
fruitful parent, in that age, of anti- Christian error. The heresi- 
archs pretended to possess an esoteric version of the Gospel, more 
profound than that which the Apostles preached in public : they 
adopted the doctrine of the inherent evil of matter, and inculcated 
a severe asceticism, which, however, was not found incompatible 
with gross practical immorality. Some affirmed that there was no 
resurrection of the body ; others that it had already taken place ; 
while a third party denied the proper humanity of our Lord. 
When, even during the lifetime of the Apostles, tares of this kind 
had become visible among the wheat, what might not be expected 
to take place when their personal superintendence was withdrawn ? 
In fact, St. Paul, when taking leave of the elders of the Ephesian 
church, expresses his forebodings that his departure from amongst 
them would be the signal for an unusual manifestation of heresy, 
even among the very presbyters whom he was addressing. 

The pastoral epistles of this Apostle, written at the close of his 
ministry, betray a vivid sense of the dangers which, from both the 
sources just mentioned, threatened the interests of Christ's king- 
dom. Soon afterwards both he and the Apostle Peter were re- 
moved from the scene of their earthly labours ; — a circumstance 
which, by depriving the Church of the two leading members of 
the apostolic college, rendered the aspect of things still more 
gloomy. It was at this time, according to the most probable con- 
jecture which we can form, that, with the view of meeting the 
impending mischiefs before they came to a head, the surviving 
Apostles added to the previously existing orders of the Christum 
ministry that of the episcopate. The original government by a 
college of elders, suited as it was to the infancy of the Church, 

• Heb. x. 25. 



318 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 















could no longer cope successfully with the difficulties occasioned 
by the waning of the " first love " of Christians, the dissensions of 
rival parties, and the advance of heresy. A stronger external bond 
of union had become indispensable : more of form, and outward 
regimen, was needed to fix and preserve what remained of the 
spirit ; chrystallisation was the natural consequence of the cooling 
of the internal heat of the mass. The less lively the sense which 
Christians retained of their spiritual unity in Christ, the more did 
they need to be reminded of it by a visible symbol thereof : the 
greater the danger of the apostolic doctrine being lost amidst the 
corruptions of heresy, the greater the necessity of its being con- 
nected with an objective, historical, basis. To understand fully the 
advantages which heresy possessed in that age, we must remember 
that as yet the sacred writings had not been collected, much less the 
canon of Scripture fixed ; so that an appeal to the written testi- 
mony of the Apostles in refutation of the pretensions of the false 
teachers, was by no means so easy then as it is now. The press- 
ing wants of the Church, in the points just mentioned, suggested 
of themselves the nature of the remedy to be provided. The new 
institution must be such as, by the force of a central authority, to 
silence, or mitigate, the dissensions of the presbyters, and gather 
the orthodox believers in each church round a visible centre ; and 
it must be fitted to be an organ of communication between the 
several churches of Christendom : thus, on the one hand, schismati- 
cal tendencies would be repressed, and, on the other, a fence would 
be raised against the incursions of heresy. For Christian doctrine 
being the common property of all Christian churches, what was 
held by all commended itself as the original deposit of the Apos- 
tles ; and this being ascertained by a comparison of the doctrine 
taught in each, the aberrations of any particular party, or church, 
would become apparent. Heresy being the natural attendant upon 
isolation, the natural corrective of it is inter-communion of all 
the parts of the body with each other. Both these requirements 
are found united in the episcopate, according to the idea of it pre- 
sented in the writings of the early fathers. Kegarded from their 
point of view, the bishop of each church constitutes the visible 
centre and type of unity, round whom the faithful are congregated 
in indissoluble union (plebs pastori adunata) ; at the same time, his 
office is ecumenical, and he serves as the formal channel of inter- 
course between his own church and the other Christian societies 
throughout the world. By an office of this kind the rapidly 
approaching failure of the personal superintendence of the Apos- 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 319 

ties, who, collectively, had hitherto formed a common bond of 
union to the churches of Christ, would be in some measure com- 
pensated, and the evils likely to ensue from their removal averted, 
as far as human means could avert them ; and, accordingly, it is 
probable that soon after (a. d. 70), the surviving Apostles enlarged 
the polity of the Church by the establishment of the episcopate. 
As has been already remarked, the destruction of the temple, which 
took place about that period, by effectually severing the link which 
existed between the Jewish converts and their unbelieving breth- 
ren, rendered the introduction of the episcopal element a matter of 
easy accomplishment. The Judaizing party, so long as it could 
point to the continued existence of the legal institutions, had a pre- 
text for refusing to coalesce heartily with their Christian brethren, 
who denied the obligation of the law; but the final cessation of the 
temple services removed this obstacle, and, by drawing the bonds 
of union closer among all, of whatever party, who sincerely pro- 
fessed the name of Christ, opened a way for the new institution. 
To this period, also, is probably to be assigned the first appear- 
ance of that fundamental error which speedily pervaded the whole 
Church, — viz. the identification of the Christian ministry with the 
Levitical priesthood, the bishop corresponding to the high priest, 
the presbyters to the common priests, and the deacons to the 
Levites ; and (as a necessary consequence) the transformation of the 
Eucharist into a real sacrifice. As long as the Jewish institutions 
were in existence, neither of the chief parties which divided the 
Church would be likely to adopt such a view ; not the followers of 
St. Paul, because they were strongly opposed to everything con- 
nected with Judaism ; not the Christians of Jewish origin, because, 
as long as the temple stood, they regarded their churches in the 
light of Christian synagogues, and, in the mind of a Jew, no asso- 
ciation existed between the synagogue and the ideas of priesthood 
and sacrifice. But when the temple services ceased, these restrain 
.ing causes would no longer operate : the Christians of heathen origi 1 1 
would naturally lose much of their jealousy of Jewish customs ; 
while the Jewish converts, the sacrificial part of the Mosaic econo- 
my being now at an end, would be tempted to reproduce it under 
the Gospel; and thus, probably, sprang up a notion which soon led 
to the substitution of another Gospel for that originally delivered, 
and the practical results of which are recorded in the history of 
Romanism in every age* 

• For a full account of the Btate of the Church towards the close of the ipoitolk I 









■20 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 






Such, were the natural causes which produced episcopacy, the 
only office connected with the Christian ministry, .besides the pres- 
byterate and diaconate, which can lay claim to an apostolical origin. 
Bishops were added to the two earlier orders, not from any notion 
of their being channels of Christ's covenanted grace, or as being 
necessary to the being of the Church, but partly because Chris 
tianity naturally settles into visible forms of organic unity, and 
partly because the wants of the age dictated an extension of the 
existing arrangements. The law of nature, and of order, is abun- 
dantly sufficient to account for the phenomenon, without our 
having recourse to a supposed divine prescription. 

Upon the subsequent and still more comprehensive forms of 
unity which followed the episcopate, it falls not within the scope 
of the present work to enlarge : they are confessed, by all but 
Eomanists, to have been neither of divine nor of apostolical 
appointment, but simply ecclesiastical arrangements. Even the 
modern philosophical school of Eomanists appears to have abandon- 
ed the attempt to trace up to Christ or His Apostles anything beyond 
the episcopate, and for the traditionary Scriptural proofs of the^ 
supremacy of the bishop of Eome to have substituted the modern 
theory of development, which has recently excited so much atten- 
tion in the theological world. It is thus, at least, that Moehler 
conducts the argument, in his work on the Unity of the Church. 
The idea, he argues, of the unity of the church was progressive, 
unfolding itself gradually as time went on, like the continually 
widening circles of a disturbed sheet of water. Hence, before 
Qyprian's time, when the unity of the whole Church first became 
a matter of consciousness among Christians, there could be no 
pope, even in rudiment: — "they who require, before that period, 
incontrovertible proofs of the existence of the primacy require 
what is unreasonable, the law of a true development not admitting 
of it : and, vice versa, the trouble which some have given them- 
selves to discover, before the same epoch, the full idea of a Pope, 
or the notion that they have discovered it, must be considered as 
vain, and their conclusions untenable. As throughout the inferior 
organization of the Church, so, in this point, the want must be 
felt, before the supply could be found." * " It is evident that 
during the first three centuries, and even at the close of them, the 
primacy is not visible, save in its first lineaments : it operates as 

Rothe, Anfange, &c. pp. 309—346, to whose researches on the subject of episcopacy the 
present writer has been much indebted. 
* Einheit in der Kirche, Abt. 2. s. 68. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH 321 

yet but informally ; and when the question arises where, and ho v, 
did it practically manifest itself, we must confess that it never 
appears alone, but always in conjunction with other churches and 
bishops ; though it is true that a peculiar character is already seen 
to attach to the Eoman see."* This view of the growth of the 
papacy has not only the advantage of being historically true, but 
of sparing learned and candid Komanists the necessity of distorting 
the expressions of Scripture, and of the early fathers, into a mean- 
ing which they never were intended to bear. Nor does the candid 
abandonment of Scriptural proof for the doctrine of the Eoman 
pontiff at all shake the dogmatical structure of Eome. For in 
this, as in all other instances, it is not upon Scripture that the 
stress of proof is ultimately laid, but upon the Church. Accord- 
ing to Eomanism, the visible Church is the impersonation of 
Christ, — the perpetuation of "God manifest in the flesh : " hence 
it matters little whether a practice, or a doctrine, be found in Scrip- 
ture or not, because the decision of the Church in its favour is 
sufficient to stamp upon it the seal of divine authority; any 
development whatever which she may sanction taking its place 
among the truths of revelation. No Eomanist, therefore, who 
understands his own system, need feel any scruple in admitting 
that Scripture is silent upon the supremacy of the bishop of Eome, 
or the first three centuries upon the doctrine of purgatory : neither 
Scripture, nor the fathers, but the decisions of the present infalli- 
ble church, form the real basis of his faith : Scripture itself, the 
great writers of his communion tell him, is the Word of God, 
because the Church has pronounced it to be so. We are by no 
means, therefore, to understand that the Romish advocates of the 
theory of development deem the doctrines or practices of their 
church, the non-existence of which in Scripture, or in the early 
fathers, they account for by the application of that theory, to be 
at all less binding than those for which direct Scriptural evidence 
can be adduced. 

The progress which the Church, when deprived of Apostolic 
superintendence, made in tjie work of organization abundantly 
confirms the theory of episcopacy above propounded, and pm\ 
that, even if the Apostles had not given her bishop*, she would 
probably have given them to herself. The same powerful ten- 
dency to union which led the Christians of a certain locality to 
congregate round a visible centre impelled in like manner neigh- 

* Einheit in der Kirche, Abt. 2. s. 71. 
21 









3 09, 



CHUKCH OF CHKIST 









bouring churches to establish an association among themselves, 
and this not merely in the way of casual intercourse, but by 
means of recognized organs. The bishop's office now began to 
assume that double character — ecumenical as well as well as local 
— which it is found to bear in the pages of Cyprian and Augus- 
tin. Churches could not communicate with each other directly, 
but they might do so by means of representatives ; and no one 
appeared so fit to be the representative of his Church as he who in 
it was the visible symbol of unity. Those bishops, therefore, who 
resided within a reasonable distance from each other soon fell into 
the practice of assembling, as the representatives of their respec- 
tive churches, first informally, and then formally, and at stated 
intervals, for the purposes of mutual recognition and consultation 
upon ecclesiastical matters ; on which occasions they were com- 
monly accompanied by delegates from the presbyters and laity. 
This was the origin of synods. Nor did the centralizing process 
stop here. As the presbyters of each church formed a council 
presided over by the bishop, so it was natural that the councils of 
bishops should develop from themselves a visible centre of unity ; 
accidental circumstances — such as a church having been founded 
by an Apostle, or its importance in a political point of view — fix- 
ing where the centre should be. Thus it was that the metropoli- 
tan sees came into existence. The beneficial effects which this 
arrangement was calculated to produce are obvious. As in differ- 
ences arising between a presbyter and his flock, the former was 
either supported or disowned by his colleagues, with the bishop at 
their head, so, by the union of bishops under the metropolitan, 
individual eccentricities were kept in check, while, on the other 
hand, the authority of each bishop in his own church, which, had 
he been isolated, might not always have sufficed to restrain cor- 
ruptions in doctrine or practice, was strengthened by the counte- 
nance and sympathy of the whole episcopate. Thus the strong- 
supported the weak, and the weak, by union with the strong, were 
no longer weak. The diseased member of the body received from 
the sound ones the restorative treatment which his case demanded. 
In the important work of appointing a bishop to a vacant see, the 
advantages of metropolitanism were especially apparent. The 
election of the new bishop proceeding, according to the custom of 
those times, from the Church itself, composed of people and pres- 
byters, it was by no means beyond the range of possibility that 
their choice might fall upon an improper person, faction, or the 
popular will, prevailing against the voice of the better part of the 



THE UNITY OF THE CHUECH. 323 

community. The danger hence arising was guarded against by 
the rule which prevailed, — that two or three at least of the neigh- 
bouring bishops, and always the metropolitan, should assist at the 
consecration of every bishop ; and that no appointment should be 
deemed valid unless it had been ratified by the other churches of 
the province, their approval of the election being testified by the 
reception from the new bishop, and transmission to him, of formal 
letters of communion, termed epistohe commumcatorice. 

The. metropolitan circles of unity soon expanded into still more 
extensive combinations. Christianity knowing no local limits, no 
legitimate reason could be assigned why the work of consolidation, 
which had been carried so far as to unite the bishops of a province 
together, should not advance until stopped by political impedi- 
ments. As long as the Roman empire held together, no such 
impediments existed. Hence we find provinces coalescing into 
patriarchates ; political considerations determining the patriarchal 
sees to the three leading churches of Rome, Antioch, and Alexan- 
dria. Later on, Rome, the capital of the world, and the scene of 
the labours and death of the great Apostles Peter and Paul, is 
seen assuming the lead in ecclesiastical, as once in political, affairs ; 
the Roman patriarch becomes invested, not by any formal delega- 
tion of power, but by tacit consent and the custom of the Church, 
with an undefined precedency in the ecclesiastical councils of 
western Christendom. In the age of Cyprian, as the writings of 
that father abundantly prove, the idea of a visible centre of unity 
for the Christians of the Roman empire had already assumed in 
men's minds a distinct form and consistence. * 

It was thus that, by means of metropolitans and patriarchates, 
the whole Church visible was brought into formal communion, 
though the unity was not yet organic, inasmuch as the visible 
head was wanting. Through its bishop, each local church was 
brought into connexion with the Church universal. Hence arose 
the idea, so intimately pervading Cyprian's writings, of the unity 
of the collected episcopate; the bishops of the Church forming a 
corporation, each member of which possessed an ecumenical 
authority and was responsible, so to speak, for the well-being 
of the whole Christian body, as well as for that of his own par- 
ticular charge; "The Church," he writes, "oik; and Catholic, is 
knit and compacted together by the mutual adhesion of a cemented 
priesthood" (or episcopate) ; f "as the one Church has been divided 

* Sec the quotations from Cyprian in the concluding chapter of this work, 
t Epist 69. Ad Flor. Pup. 



324 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

by Christ into many members throughout the world, so the one 
episcopate is every where diffused by the harmonious multiplicity 
of many bishops." * Nor was this mere theory : the idea was 
realized. When distance prevented the personal intercourse of 
bishops, the defect was supplied by a constant epistolary corres- 
pondence ; and no event of importance occurred in any part of 
the Christian world but it was immediately communicated to the 
whole Church. The churches of Lyons and Vienna, in describing 
the sufferings of their martyrs, address themselves to " the breth- 
ren in Asia and Phrygia, having the same faith and the same 
hope of redemption with themselves." f The opposition which 
Cornelius, the legitimate bishop of Home, experienced from 
Novatian and his followers, excited the liveliest interest at 
Carthage. " He " (Cornelius) " was made bishop/' writes Cyprian 
to Antoninus, a bishop of Numidia, " by very many of our col- 
leagues then present in Kome, who sent us letters, highly honour- 
able to him, and full of his praise, to signify to us his appointment. 
The chair of St. Peter having been thus filled according to the 
will of God, and the appointment having been confirmed by the 
consent of us all" (i. e. the wbole episcopate), " whosoever shall 
now attempt to intrude himself into it must of necessity be out- 
side the pale of the Church ; for he has not the Church's ordina- 
tion who does not hold the Church's unity." \ Cornelius, on the 
other hand, when some of the confessors who had taken part with 
Novatian, returned to the communion of the Church, immediately 
communicates the intelligence to Cyprian, with a request that he 
would take care to transmit it to the rest of the churches, that 
" all may know that this crafty and perverse heretic (Novatian) 
is daily losing influence." § Excommunication by any church, 
however insignificant, shut the offender out from the communion 
of the Church universal: no bishop would receive him to fellow- 
ship, until the sentence had been reversed by the same authority 
which had pronounced it. Paul of Samosata having propounded 
some doctrines subversive of the proper divinity of Christ, imme- 
diately, to use the words of Eusebius, "the pastors of the neigh- 
bouring churches came together from every quarter as against a 
destroyer of Christ's flock, and convoked an assembly at Antioch ; " 
the result of which was that " this arch-heretic was convicted, and 
excommunicated from the whole Catholic Church under heaven." 
The decision of the council was communicated, in a letter ad- 

* Epist. 52. Ad Anton. t Euseb. lib. r. c. L 

X Epist. 52. Ad Anton. i Ad Cyp. (Epist. 46.) 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 325 

dressed by the writers, "to Dionysius" (Bishop of Rome) "and 
Maximus" (Bishop of Alexandria), "and their fellow-ministers, 
bishops, presbyters, and deacons, throughout the world ; " in 
which they also signify that a new .bishop had been appointed in 
Paul's stead, and request that letters of fellowship (ygd^tuTa 
y.oLvavtxa) may be transmitted on both sides.* Such was the 
unity of the Church in the third and fourth centuries ; exhibiting 
no inadequate exemplification of the Apostle's words, " If one 
member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or if one member 
be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." In this respect, 
justice has not been done to the Christianity of those ages. Cor- 
rupt as it was in many important points, it yet presented a pheno- 
menon which the world had never yet beheld. A vast association, 
extending over every part of the Roman empire, and beyond it, 
maintained its ground, not only without the aid, but in . spite of 
the hostility, of the state ; exhibiting everywhere the same general 
features, and pervaded through all its parts by an electric sym- 
pathy of feeling, and a compactness of adhesion, which to the 
heathen statesman or philosopher must have been inexplicable. 
It is easy, with the infidel historian, or with the sectarian Chris- 
tian, to attribute the characteristic features of the visible Church, 
at the period in question, to priestly ambition, or other evil ten- 
dencies of human nature ; but the Christian of larger views, and 
greater candour, will see in it a striking proof of the power of 
his religion, even when disfigured with -many errors, to knit men 
together in a bond of union, far exceeding In power, and in 
comprehensiveness, any that mere political or social relations 
can furnish. 

The papacy itself, the topmost stone of the edifice, followed, as 
a matter of course, in due time. When once the Cyprian ic idea of 
the unity of the universal episcopate had taken hold of men's 
minds, that of a living centre, in whom the whole body should see 
its unity visibly represented, speedily suggested itself, and began 
to work its way towards its realization. And, regarded merely as 
the efflorescence of the episcopate, the ecclesiastical centre <»(' West- 
ern Christendom, it must be admitted that there is nothing in the 
idea of the papacy positively anti-christian. If it be not anti- 
christian for the faithful of a diocese to gather themselves round a 
bishop, or for the bishops of a province to evolve out of their body 
a metropolitan centre, no more was it anti-christian for the e 

* Euseb. lib. vii. c. 30. 






326 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









pate of an empire, or of the whole Church, to develope from itself 
a living centre of unity, which should have the effect of consolidat- 
ing, and binding together, the whole body. 

To refer the papacy of the middle ages to a purely satanic origin 
is as wide of the truth as it is to make it the institution of Christ 
Himself: it was the result of natural causes, and can lay no claim 
to a supernatural character, whether diabolical or divine. Every 
successive step from the commencement to the completion of the 
church system can be distinctly traced in history ; and an impar- 
tial survey of the whole field thus opened to our view will proba- 
bly convince us that, in the construction of the papal edifice, 
human passions, human sins, and even human virtues, had the 
largest share. The successive popes as much obeyed as they led 
the tendencies of the age : Western Christendom was as ready, nay 
anxious, to confer upon the bishop of Eome the prerogative of 
supreme power, temporal and spiritual, as he was to receive the 
fatal boon. De Maistre has reminded Protestants, and the justice 
of his remark no one can deny, that where there is on one side a 
voluntary surrender of inherited rights, it is idle to talk of usurpa- 
tion on the other ; and, in fact, the mediaeval bishops of Rome only 
exercised powers which had been delegated to them with the free, 
or apparently free, consent of the Church and the State. -If the 
Church was willing that unlimited ecclesiastical power should be 
deposited in the hands of a single bishop, and if emperors were 
content to hold their dominions as fiefs of Rome, can we wonder if 
the Holy See did not feel itself bound to reject the proffered dignity, 
or to take pains to remind its suitors of the primitive equality of 
bishops, and of the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom ? Especially 
when, to a pious mind contemplating the social disorders of the 
age, it might well seem that no remedy that could be applied to 
rectify those disorders was so likely to succeed as the erection of a 
central authority, feeble in a temporal point of view, but wielding 
spiritual powers before which the haughtiest princes must bow, 
and standing in the relation of a common father to all the nations 
of Europe. The sentiments of disapprobation with which we must 
view the language and actions of certain popes will probably be 
considerably mitigated if we bear in mind that they were men, and 
that their position was one of peculiar difficulty and temptation. 
Who, in fact, shall venture to attribute to such a man as Leo the 
Great a deliberate design to establish the papal throne upon the 
ruins of apostolic Christianity ? The event, indeed, has proved 
that to no human hand can the sceptre of universal empire, spirit- 



THE UXITY OF THE CHUKCH. 327 

ual or temporal, be safely confided ; but the intolerable evils which, 
sprang from the papal rule, in its fully developed form, were yet 
in the womb of time, and were unforeseen. In short, regarding 
the papacy as a natural result, the slowly accumulated concretion 
of many ages ; as the visible symbol of the unity of the whole 
Church ; as a sheltering inclosure which preserved the great objec- 
tive truths of the Gospel during periods of wide-spread heresy and 
political anarchy ; we can neither feel surprise at the appearance 
of the phenomenon, nor refuse to recognise in it a permissive dis- 
pensation, which divine providence made subservient to its own 
purposes. At what point, then, it may be asked, did the system of 
which papal Rome is the head and centre assume a decidedly anti- 
Christian character ? we reply, when to the fact of the chief patri- 
archate of the See of Rome the doctrine of the Roman pontiff, as 
laid down in the formularies of Trent, and expounded by the great 
writers of the papal communion, was appended ; an addition which 
totally changed the relations between the church of Rome and 
the other churches of the Christian commonwealth. With some 
observations upon this important point, the more important because 
a similar change of fact into doctrine meets us in every page of 
Church history, the present section shall be brought to a close. 

The reader will probably have already perceived that the prin- 
ciple which has throughout governed the construction of the 
Church system, especially in matters of polity, is, the transforma- 
tion of points of Apostolic order, or ecclesiastical custom, into divine 
laws; a principle which rests for support on the dogma, that the 
Church is the representative, and impersonation, of Christ upon 
earth, and which, it is easy to see, was adopted in order to convert 
her into a legal institution, and to represent her as, in her post- 
apostolic forms of polity, a divinely appointed mediatrix between 
man and God. Whatever part of the Church system we examine, 
we see the working of this principle. Thus it is that on infant 
baptism, a subject on which Scripture is well nigh silent a 
doctrinal structure is raised which, instead of confining itself 
within the range of pious opinion, boldly claims to be a matter 
of faith: thus, too, it is that the rite of confirmation, for which 
at most we have but the analogical precedent of the laying on 
of the Apostles' hands (analogical because the apostolic imposi- 
tion of hands differed essentially from every subsequent one), is 
exalted into a divinely appointed means of grace, and made a 
Sacrament. By the application of the same potent instrument it 






328 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 












is that ; as regards ecclesiastical polity, the episcopal form of gov- 
ernment is made to assume the character of a divine law in the 
same sense in which the Aaronic priesthood was; becomes a 
necessary condition of Christ's presence in his Church, and of 
immutable obligation. In another branch of the Romish contro- 
versy, this principle is employed to give a quasi-divine authority 
to the creeds of the Church. 

There are several stages, or degrees, in the application of it. 
First, the apostolic appointments, or practices, recorded in Scrip- 
ture, are, without any warrant from the Apostles themselves for 
the statement, declared to be of divine authority, and essential to 
the being of the Church : next, the same divine sanction is ex- 
tended to such appointments as, from the testimony of uninspired 
history, — alone, or combined with Scripture, — we have reason to 
believe to be apostolical : the third stage is, when every custom of 
the Church, whether it pretend to be of apostolical origin or not, 
if only it be ancient and universal, is affirmed to be of perpetual 
obligation : and last comes the distinctive principle of Tridentine 
Romanism — viz. that the decisions of the present church, whether 
as regards doctrine or practice, have the force of divine laws, and 
come to us with the same authority as if Christ Himself had pro- 
mulgated them. 

The real difference, on this point, between Romanists and Pro- 
testants should be carefully borne in mind. It is not merely that 
the RomisH church retains certain practices which the reformed 
churches have abandoned ; or that the former possesses, while the 
latter are without, a pope : the true point of difference between the 
advocates and the opponents of the Church system consists in the 
authoritative sanction which they respectively claim for this and 
every other development of church polity. While the Protestant 
views the organization of the Church as the result of natural 
causes, operating under apostolic guidance and control, the Ro- 
manist regards it as an arbitrary appointment, emanating directly 
from God. Not content with arguing that the changes introduced 
from time to time into the polity of the Church were conceived in 
an apostolical spirit, and, on this ground, are to be retained, Rome 
has ever claimed for them a directly divine sanction : — the pope 
received from Christ Himself a commission to represent Him upon 
earth ; episcopacy was in the original draught of church govern- 
ment delivered by Christ to the Apostles ; and so on throughout. 
The Protestant protests not so much against the fact of the primacy 
of the bishop of Rome as against the sanction which it claims, — 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 320 

the ground on which it is placed : he retains episcopacy where he 
can, but he rejects the so-called catholic theory of it. In like 
manner he practises infant baptism, and the laying on of hands ; but 
neither in the one case nor the other does he venture to allege a 
divine prescription for his practice. 

The occasions which first gave rise to this distinctive principle 
of Tridentine, as contrasted with genuine — i. e. Protestant — 
Catholicism, were those on which the early bishops had to contend 
against sectarian tendencies, or the encroachments of an insubor- 
dinate spirit. From time to time there appeared in the Church 
men, both lay and clerical, who, whether from pure or corrupt 
motives, found fault with the existing state of things, and endea- 
voured to bring about what they conceived to be a reformation : 
failing in which attempt, they too often became open opponents 
of their bishop, and established rival communions. Such at Car- 
thage, in the time of Cyprian, were Novatus and Felicissimus, the 
authors of the schism which figures so prominently in the writ- 
ings of that father ; and such characters there probably were in 
the churches to which Ignatius addressed his epistles : a supposi- 
tion which explains, if not justifies, his unguarded expressions. 
The merits or demerits of Kovatus and Felicissimus being put 
aside as irrelevant to the question, the facts were these : — a party 
among the presbyters of Carthage had, from the first, opposed 
Cyprian's elevation to that see, and, when their efforts to prevent 
his election proved unavailing, they continued to evince a strong 
feeling of hostility towards him : of these the most influential was 
ISTovatus, who, among other acts of insubordination, ordained a 
certain Felicissimus deacon, without the knowledge or consent of 
his bishop. At length the anti-Cyprianic party broke out into 
open schism, and appointed Fortunatus, one of their number, 
Bishop of Carthage in opposition to Cyprian. The proceedings 
of these men were manifestly subversive of all order, and highly 
censurable; but what is the ground which Cyprian takes against 
them? Instead of treating the schism as a breach of Christian 
unity, and apostolic order, he at once denounces it as a Bacrilegious 
violation of the divine law. "There is," he says, "but one God, 
one Christ, one Church, one" (episcopal) "chair, founded apod a 
rock by the Word of the Lord. There can be but one altar and 
one priest (bishop). Whoever elsewhere oolle What- 

ever is set up by men contrary to the divine appointment, 
spurious, impious, sacrilegious."*' " The opposite party," he wi 

* Epist. 40. Ad Pleb. 



330 



CHURCH OF cnmsT. 



to Cornelius, "ordained for itself a bishop, and, violating the 
Sacrament and divine ordinance of Catholic unity, created a 
spurious head in a state of schism." * Nor does he hesitate to rank 
Fortunatus and his party with those who, under the Mosaic 
economy, set at nought the priest's authority (Deut. xvii. 12.): — 
"How can they escape the judgment of an avenging God who 
heap reproaches not only on their brethren, but upon the priests " 
(bishops), " upon whom God was pleased to bestow such honour 
that whoever should refuse obedience to the priest for the time 
being was to be put to death." f And, in a still stronger pas- 
sage: — -"Heresies spring from no other cause than from an in- 
subordinate spirit towards the priest of God, and from not 
recollecting that in a Church there can be but one priest and one 
judge, who, for the time being, is the vicar of Christ.":}; 

It was when placed in circumstances like these that the rulers 
of the Church, and they men of a sincere and fervent piety, 
yielded to the natural, but fatal, temptation to overstep the limits 
of truth, and, in order to silence or suppress the turbulence of 
faction, ascribe a divine authority to every part of the polity of 
the Church as it then existed. A pious fraud, the consequences 
of which should be a warning to those who, in our own day, are 
tempted to adopt a similar line of argument in contending with 
dissent. It was competent to Cyprian to meet his opponents on 
solid Scriptural ground, to insist upon the evils of schism, and 
warn his flock against the devices of crafty schismatics : but, not 
content with this, he arrogates to himself and his order, without 
scruple, the prerogatives of the Jewish priesthood, and places 
all, whatever their motives might be, who offered resistance to his 
claims, in the same category with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. 
" Can that man," he asks, " think that he has communion with 
Christ who separates himself from the communion of Christ's 
clergy and people ? He wages war against the Church, against 
the ordinance of God. An enemy of the altar, rebellious against 
the sacrifice of Christ, perfidious instead of believing, sacrilegious 
instead of religious, &c, he dares to set up another altar, and 
profane the true offering of the Lord by false sacrifices: not 
knowing that he who thus opposes himself to the divine ordinance 
shall experience the divine chastisement of his temerity. Thus it 
was that Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, intruding themselves into 
the priest's office, in defiance of Moses and Aaron, received the 



» Epist 42. Ad Cornel. 



f Epist. 55. Ad Cornel. 



t Ibid. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 331 

just reward of their deed. Thus, too, king Uzziah, attempting, 
contrary to the divine law, to burn incense upon the altar, was 
struck with leprosy." * In such statements as these it was that 
the disingenuousness, the tampering with truth, characteristic of 
spurious — i. e. Eoman, Catholicism, first displayed itself. Who- 
ever ventured to raise his voice against any existing practice of 
the Church, however unscriptural it might be, — whether, like 
Jovinian and Yigilantius, the objector assailed the extravagant 
notions which had begun to prevail concerning the merit of 
celibacy, or the practices, verging to idolatry, connected with the 
invocation of saints, and the commemorations of the martyrs ; or, 
as regards polity, offered any opposition to the hierarchical des- 
potism which, in Cyprian's time, was making rapid progress, — 
was denounced as an enemy of Christ, a sacrilegious violator of 
the divine ordinances, a successor of Korah and his company. 
~No distinction was made between what is commanded and what is 
merely recommended by precedent and example ; between the 
sacraments ordained by Christ Himself and the regulations of the 
Apostles; between the apostolic appointments and those of the 
Church in subsequent times: — the whole of the external ritual 
and polity of the Church, as it existed in the fourth century, was 
equally declared to be of God's appointment, and adhesion to it 
made the indispensable condition of salvation. An error which 
could not have arisen, had not the true idea of the Church been 
lost, and its essential being supposed to lie in what was nothing 
but the visible manifestation of that being. 

The dogma of the Koman pontiff grew up in a similar manner. 
That the See of Kome owed the commanding influence which it is 
found exercising at an early period to a concurrence of accidental 
circumstances is certain ; nor, as has been already remarked, was 
there anything directly anti-Christian in the centralizing process 
by which the bishop of that Church became the virtual head of 
Christendom. In process of time, however, political changes occur 
red which necessarily produced collisions between the prerogath 
conceded or assumed, of the Holy See, and the rights of indepen- 
dent churches and nations. These events were, the partition of the 
Eoman empire into the two great divisions of the east and th<> west, 
and the division of the western portion of it into the kingdoms of 
modern Europe. The new-born feeling of national life, called forth 
by these providential events, could not fail, sooner or later, to 

* De Unit. Eccles. 




3o^ CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

manifest itself in a spirit of resistance to the encroachments, ever 
advancing, of the ecclesiastical power of Eome. Nations began 
to assert their sovereignty and independence : it was felt that there 
could be no security for the public safety as long as the national 
clergy, instead of being identified with the national interests, were 
the creatures of an extra-national power : kings and emperors bore 
with increasing impatience the interference of the bishops of Home 
with their temporal prerogatives. At this point it was that the 
distinctively tridentine dogma of the papacy began to make its 
appearance. The spiritual power, with the view of averting the 
dangers which threatened it, took precisely the same ground which 
Cyprian had previously taken against the contumacious presbyters 
of Carthage. Custom and precedent were transformed into divine 
laws ; to the fact, which could not be denied, that Eome had become 
the centre of unity to the Western Church, a doctrine was appended, 
viz. that the bishop of that Church is, by divine appointment, the 
infallible vicar of Christ, and ruler jure divino of the visible Church 
throughout the world : — the papacy was made an essential consti- 
tuent of Christianity * From this, of course, it followed that no 
church, however scriptural in doctrine, or apostolic in polity, it 
might be, which did not acknowledge the supremacy of the pope, 
could be a true Church : its members were out of the pale of salva- 
tion, delivered over to the uncovenanted mercies of God. Excom- 
munication by the bishop of Eome cut the subject of it off from 
Christ. " He that reigneth on high, to whom is given all power in 
heaven and earth, hath committed the one holy, catholic, and apos- 
tolic church, out of which there is no salvation, to one alone on 
earth, — namely, to Peter, prince of the Apostles, and to the Eoman 
pontiff, successor of Peter, to be governed with a plenitude of 
power." f " We declare, define, and pronounce, it to be of neces- 
sity to salvation that every human being be subject to the Eoman 
pontiff." X To establish these claims, and give them the sanction 
of antiquity, pretended decretals of the early bishops of Eome 
were forged, in which these bishops were made to speak the lan- 
guage of subsequent times ; just as in the so-called apostolical con- 
stitutions, which were composed about the beginning of the third 
century, and which, throughout, favour the hierarchical, legal, 



* Thus Bellarmin does not hesitate to affirm, that with the dogma of the Roman pontiff 
Christianity stands or falls: — "De qua re agitur, cum de primatu Pontificis agitur? brevis- 
fime dicam, de summa rei Christianas. "— Praef. ad Lib. de Sum. Pont. 

+• Bull of Pope Pius against Elizabeth. Quoted by Barrow, "Supremacy, <tc." Introd. s. 4. 

X Boniface VIII. Ibid. 



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 333 

spirit which had begun to pervade the Church, the Apostles are 
introduced as laying down ecclesiastical canons according to the 
ideas of the age of Cyprian. Spurious Catholicism has ever dis- 
played an absence of moral sensitiveness on the score of truth. * 
Scripture itself was made to bear witness to the divine commission 
of the successor of St. Peter. For a time, the Church — that is, 
the Papacy — was triumphant. Emperors were deposed, churches 
excommunicated, and every right, divine and human, violated. 
What availed it for the sufferers to remonstrate? A divine law 
supersedes mere natural right ; a divine command removes every 
scruple of conscience. The Jews were doing a service to God in 
exterminating the nations of Canaan. If the pope be really the 
vicar of Christ — the ruler jure divino of the visible Church — the 
proceedings of a Hildebrand were perfectly justifiable. At length, 
however, the yoke became intolerable, and the feelings of impa- 
tience and disgust which had long been fermenting in secret, burst 
forth, and produced the reformation. It is worthy of observation, 
however, that, throughout that great movement, it was not so much 
the fact, as the doctrine, of the Koman primacy against which the 
reformers took up their position ; they even declared that if the 
Bishop of Eome would acknowledge that his superiority to the 
other bishops was but by the custom of the Church, they, on their 
part, would leave him in undisturbed possession of his patriarchal 
relation to the churches of Western Christendom. The remark- 
able passage of Melancthon to that effect is well known: — "Con- 
cerning the Koman Pontiff) my opinion is, that, should he admit 
the Gospel, the precedence which he has hitherto enjoyed, as com- 
pared with other bishops, may, to preserve the peace and tranquil- 
ity of those Christians who acknowledge his jurisdiction, be by us 
also accorded to him ; but only jure humano." f But, the pope 
refusing either to allow free scope to the Gospel, or to relax in his 
personal pretensions, the reformers exhorted the sovereigns of their 
respective countries to resume the powers which rightfully belonged 
to them, and, with the consent of their people and nobles, to intro 
duce the reforms which were universally desired, whether the 
bishop of Rome should agree thereto or not. For this they were 
threatened with excommunication, the effect of which would be to 
shut them out from the hope of salvation. But they took leave to 

* Primo igitur fuerunt consuetudines j deinde factas sunt legee ; poetea ut majorem lcgibua 
illis autoritatem conciliarent, traditionibua apostolorum eaa tribuerunt.— Chemnitz, Exam. 
Cone. Trid. loc. i. 8. 8. 

t Art. Smalcald. Ad finem. 






334 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

inquire into the ground of the dogma, that communion with the 
bishop of Kome is a necessary condition of salvation : they found 
it not in the early fathers, nor in Scripture : appealing from the so- 
called successors of the Apostles to the Apostles themselves, they 
demanded, but in vain, that the divine ordinance, appointing the 
bishop of Eome vicar of Christ upon earth, should be produced : 
and at length, feeling their ground firm, they pronounced the 
whole doctrine to be, as indeed it was, an impudent fabrication. 
They did not separate from the Eomish Church, but they asserted 
the right of every national Church to regulate, independently of 
the bishop of Kome, its own affairs : on her part, Rome pronounced 
every Church which exercised this right to be cut off from Christ. 
This is now our relative position : we maintaining that we have 
only resumed rights which were always ours, though for a time 
they may have been permitted to lie in abeyance, Rome affirming 
that we have violated a divine ordinance. 

It is not probable that the papal claims in their full extent will 
ever again be admitted by any nation which has once thrown off 
the yoke ; the independence of national churches, one of the great 
truths the establishment of which we owe to the Reformation, 
being jealously asserted, even by those who, in other points, in- 
cline to the doctrinal system of Trent : but it must never be for- 
gotten that the principle which governed the construction of the 
papal dogma — viz. the transmutation of points of order into 
divine laws — may be actively at work where the supremacy of 
the pope is denied. We must protest against the earlier, as well 
as the later, exemplifications of this principle ; against episcopacy 
jure divino, as well as against the tridentine theory of the papacy. 
The Protestant will retain, where it has been handed down to him, 
that form of church polity which is sanctioned by apostolic prece- 
dent : he will require the clearest evidence of its being no longer 
fitted to secure the great ends of the Church, before he ventures 
to innovate upon it: but when he hears apostolic precedents 
exalted into divine laws, and made of immutable obligation, so 
that where there is no bishop, there is no church, and no sacra- 
ments ; ritual and polity, and not the presence of the Spirit, being 
set forth as that wherein the true being of the Church lies ; he will 
at once detect the presence of that noxious element which makes 
Romanism what it is. When claims of this kind are put forth, he 
will appeal to Scripture, and require that the covenanted con- 
nexion between the grace of Christ and any particular form of 
polity be thence proved. Nor will he consent to be deprived of 



THE ONENESS OF THE CHURCH. 335 

the liberty of testing, and, if need be, reforming existing ecclesias- 
tical customs, by a reference to apostolical tradition — i. e. Scrip- 
ture. A divinely prescribed polity and ritual, like that of Moses, 
cannot, without sacrilege, be altered; but no such sanction is 
claimed by the Apostles for their own regulations ; much less can 
it be claimed for those of their uninspired successors. On the 
other hand, as long as the distinction between what is divine and 
what is human ; between what is essential to the being and what 
may be necessary to the well-being of the Church is carefully 
observed, the Catholic Protestant — Catholic in the genuine sense 
of the term — will be as reluctant as his opponents needlessly to 
"break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church, which be not 
repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by 
common authority," or to " offend against the common order of 
the Church:" he will assign to historical Christianity its just 
value, as long as it is not employed to impose fetters where Scrip- 
ture leaves us free. But when points of order are put forward as 
divine enactments, he will resist the pretension, well aware that it 
involves the essential principle of Komanism : he will protest, not 
so much against the practice or institution itself, which may or 
may not be a salutary one, as against the dogma sought to be 
connected with it. * 



Section II. 

THE ONENESS OF THE CHURCH. 

Closely connected with, though distinct from, the attribute of 
internal, or organic, unity, is that of the oneness, or oneliness, of 
the Church, which, according to the plan laid down, is the next to 
be considered. 

* Chemnitz well states the Protestant rule regarding rites and ceremonies : — "Ritus, qui 
Scripturic consentanei sint, recte retineri, qui vero cum Scriptura pugnant justo jndioio, et 
nulla temeritate, rejici et aboleri. Quod si de adiaphoris ritibus qui cum Scriptura non 
pugnant, quajstio est, simplex et plana est responsio ; — Si non proponantur cum opinione neces- 
sitatis, cidtus et meriti, sed tantum ut ordini, decori, et aedificationi serviant, et cum Christiana 
libertate non pugnent, posse de illis statui prout ecclesioe videbitur conveniri."— Exameo 
Cone. Trid. loc. ii. 8. 8. 



336 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

That there is but one holy Catholic Church is almost a self- 
evident proposition ; two universal Churches being a contradiction 
in terms. Moreover, both Komanists and Protestants agree in the 
abstract proposition, that out of the Catholic Church there is, 
ordinarily, or by virtue of the covenanted promise of God, no 
salvation. Those who shall be saved are, in the ordinary course of 
things, added to the Church (Acts, ii. 47.). Neither party, again, 
denies that persons may be saved to whom the message of salvation 
has never been brought. For if, on the one hand, such persons 
must be pronounced "strangers to the covenants of promise," on 
the other, both recorded instances, such as that of Job, and certain 
general declarations of Scripture, encourage us to hope that the 
mercies of Cod may, in their exuberance, pass beyond the limits 
which He Himself has prescribed, and be extended to many to 
whom the way of salvation through Christ has not been explicitly 
declared. In all such cases, however, it is to be remembered that 
it is not "by," but in "the law, or sect, which every man profess- 
eth," that he is saved, if saved he be;* for "there is none other 
name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved 
but the name of Christ : f " those, therefore, who, without the light 
of revelation, have been delivered from the consequences of the 
fall must have been so, not by virtue of the religion which they 
professed, if they did profess any, but by the merits of Christ 
imputed to them in some way accordant, doubtless, with the divine 
wisdom, but unknown to us. With respect to those to whom the 
Gospel has been explicitly propounded, the question admits of no 
doubt: — they reject it at their own everlasting peril. 

No sooner, however, do we proceed to ask what is that Catholic 
Church out of which there is no salvation ? than the fundamental 
difference between the Eomanist and the Protestant conception of 
the Clmrch comes into view, and begins to operate. Out of that 
Church, which is the body of which Christ is the Head, which con- 
sists of those who are in living union with Christ and are led by 
llis Spirit, the Protestant readily admits that there is not, and 
cannot be, covenanted salvation. For tne true Church consists of 
those who are in a state of salvation ; and a state of salvation is 
the state of those who by faith in Christ are exonerated from the 
penalty, and emancipated from the power, of sin. This, however, 
is very far from being what the Eomanist means by the exclusive- 
ness of the Church. Since, in his view, the body of Christ is that 

• See Art 18., with Burnet's remarks upon it. f ^ote, iv< 12 « 



THE ONENESS OF THE CHURCH. 337 

visible community which acknowledges the supremacy of the 
Eoman Pontiff, the proposition m his mouth amounts to this : — • 
that, beyond the pale of this visible body, there is, ordinarily 
speaking, no salvation ; the federal mercies of God being absolutely 
limited to those in communion with the bishop of Eome. It mat- 
ters not how sincere may be the faith which derives its nutriment 
from the very words of Christ and His Apostles, or how fruitful 
that faith may be in all the graces of the Spirit ; if the individual 
in whom it appears to exist be not in communion with the see of 
Eome, he is, in theoretical strictness, cut off from Christ, and con- 
signed to the uncovenanted mercies of God. On the other hand,- 
however destitute a man may be of saving faith, how barren soever 
in the visible evidences of the indwelling of the Spirit, if only he 
be externally within the consecrated pale, he is a member of Christ, 
and, as such, a participator in the privileges of Christ's body (Hoc 
quidem bono non privantur (mali), ut hujus corporis membra esse 
desinant. — Cat. Eom. p. 1. c. 10.). Such are the conclusions to 
which the Eomish theory, when fully carried out, leads. In this, 
however, as in other instances, that Christian feeling which no 
theory can wholly extinguish interposes to mitigate the rigour of 
the dogma; and various charitable pleas — such as that of invin- 
cible ignorance, &c. — have been devised, with the view of rendering 
it possible to believe that salvation may be had outside the pale 
of the Eomish communion. 

The readers of the early fathers will not need to be reminded 
that the doctrine of Eome upon this point is nothing but the ma- 
ture development of principles which had long been germinating 
in the Church. The startling dogma that one visible Christian 
communion is the spiritual ark out of which there is no salvation 
required, as might be expected, centuries to bring it to maturity. 
It grew up in the following way : — The first contests in which the 
Church was engaged were with heretics rather than schismatics, 
— deniers of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, rather 
than violators of the Church's unity. Hence the early polemical 
writers — Irenseus and Tertullian — insist chiefly upon the histori- 
cal continuity of doctrine in the chief churches from the Apostles' 
times downwards, and the contrariety therewith which the heretical 
novelties exhibited : a line of argument which, before the canon 
of Scripture was fixed, or easy access could be had to the inspired 
writers, it was both natural and allowable in them to adopt : thoy 
were perfectly justified in appealing from the subjective fancies 
(atQtaeis) of individuals, to the objective, historical, faith of the 

22 



338 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

Church, as it had been always held. In process of time the arena 
of strife changed ; and the Church had to deal with communities 
which were schismatical rather than heretical, or professed essen- 
tially the same faith with the Catholic Church, while they 
renounced her communion. Such were the Novatian and the 
Donatist schisms, the former of which occurred at Kome while 
Cornelius was bishop of that Church, and Cyprian presided over 
the see of Carthage: the latter in northern Africa during the 
episcopate of Augustin. Neither of these sects appear to have 
•denied any article of the common Catholic faith ; and, what was 
still more embarrassing, they retained the same episcopal form 
of government which prevailed throughout Catholic Christendom. 
Novatian procured himself to be ordained bishop by the laying 
on of episcopal hands ; while the Donatist bishops of Africa were 
a numerous and powerful body. The consequence of this change 
in the state of things was that Cyprian and Augustin — the two 
great founders of the Church system — were compelled to shift the 
argument from the ground of doctrine to that of polity, and polity 
not in the abstract merely, but as transmitted in a certain historical 
line : they were driven to maintain the position, not merely that 
there only where certain doctrines are held, or even a certain form 
of polity is retained, does that form of religious life which we call 
Christian exist, — for this would have left no distinction between 
them and their opponents who, equally with themselves, were 
orthodox and episcopal, — but that genuine Christianity is only 
to be found amongst those who, besides being orthodox and epis- 
copal, were in communion with the Catholic bishop, — the bishop, 
that is, whose title rested upon an unbroken line of succession 
from the Apostles' times. By both these fathers this is affirmed 
in the strongest language. Some of their remarkable expressions 
in reference to schismatics will be hereafter cited : meanwhile the 
sum of their doctrine may be thus briefly stated : — To the Church 
— or, to speak in the concrete, to the Catholic bishop, who, in 
fact, is the Church personified (scire debes episcopum in ecclesia 
esse et ecclesiam in episcopo) * — has been committed the exclusive 
prerogative of dispensing forgiveness of sins, and the saving grace 
of the Holy Spirit, the Catholic episcopate being the sole organ 
through* which the merits of Christ are applied to the souls of the 
faithful : consequently no one who is not in communion with the 
Catholic bishop can have any saving fellowship with Christ, or be 

• Cyprian, Epist. 69. Ad Florent. Pup. 



THE ONENESS OF THE CHURCH. 339 

a partaker of Christ's Spirit. That which in the separatist bodies 
appears to be faith, or love, or holiness, is not really so : the 
graces of the Spirit cannot grow save within the one consecrated 
enclosure. It is not the object (Christ) upon which faith fixes that 
gives that faith its distinctively Christian character, but the com- 
munion in which it is exercised — viz. the Catholic Church. On 
this latter ground Cyprian rests his famous assertion, that he who 
suffers death for Christ's sake outside the pale of the Church has 
no claim to the title of Martyr. Cyprian, as is well known, held 
that the ordinances of the Gospel when administered by schis- 
matics are wholly invalid, and that those, therefore, who had been 
baptized by persons in schism should, on their reconciliation with 
the Church, be re-baptized : this opinion found a strenuous and 
successful opponent in Augustin, who, however, while he maintains 
that the sacrament, wherever and by whomsoever administered, 
remains a sacrament because of its institution by Christ, and is 
therefore in no case to be repeated, is quite as decided as his 
predecessor in declaring it to be useless as regards salvation, while 
the person baptized continues in a state of schism. Those who 
are acquainted with the works of these fathers will be ready to 
bear witness that this is no exaggerated statement of their senti- 
ments on this subject ; so completely, even at that early period, 
had the life of the Church come to be identified, not with apos- 
tolicity of doctrine, but with the external transmission of a certain 
form of polity. 

In proportion as the organization of the Church grew into form 
in the manner before described, so did the idea of its exclusiveness ; 
and when at length the abstract notion of the unity of the Catholic 
episcopate had become clothed with flesh and blood in the person 
of the Roman pontiff, nothing more was needed than to apply the 
' principles which Cyprian and Augustin had centuries before incul- 
cated to the new development of the papacy, in order to arrive at 
the tridentine dogma, — that beyond the pale of the Roman obe- 
dience there is ordinarily no salvation. None of the distinctive 
doctrines of the church theory took its place more naturally in the 
dogmatical system of Trent. 

The Protestant, with his views of the relation in which the polity 
of the Church stands to its true being, must reject not only the 
Romish, but the patristic idea of its oneness. That " where the 
Spirit of God is, there" and there alone "is the Church," is an 
obvious truism ; the question is, by what external means does the 
Spirit of God work, from the presence of which, therefore, we may 



340 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

infer His presence ? The Protestant searches Scripture in vain for 
a covenanted connexion between episcopacy, or any other form of 
polity, and the grace of the Holy Spirit : he finds that the Church 
existed, nay, was "filled with the Holy Ghost," long before it 
possessed bishops, priests, and deacons. Two external means, and 
two only, he discovers to which grace is by covenant annexed, 
and which, in fact, were from the first instrumental in gathering 
in and building up the elect of God, — viz. the Word and the 
Sacraments : with these, therefore, the Protestant connects his idea 
of the exclusiveness of the Church, and contents himself with 
affirming that where the Word (in its fundamental verities at least) 
is not preached, and the sacraments not duly administered, there 
the Church of Christ is not. For the same reason, he places the 
apostolicity of the Church principally, though not exclusively, in 
the succession of doctrine. For the Holy Spirit, the divine ad- 
ministrator of the Christian economy, does not ordinarily work 
now, any more than he did at first, save through the Apostles 7 
testimony and doctrine, which is nowhere to be found with cer- 
tainty but in Holy Scripture. By the Apostolic doctrine it is that 
souls are regenerated ; and by the same " sincere milk of the Word" 
they are nourished unto life eternal. In this sense it is that the 
Church "is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and pro- 
phets," the living Word Himself "being the chief corner stone;"* 
while, by means of "evangelists, pastors, and teachers," "teach- 
ing" men "to observe all things whatsover" Christ has "com- 
manded," f the spiritual edifice grows up into a holy temple to the 
Lord. 

And thus we are brought back to the two Protestant notes of a 
Church, — the pure preaching of the Word and the due adminis- 
tration of the sacraments : only that now we view them under a 
somewhat different aspect from that under which they were for- 
merly considered ; we view them, not positively, as sufficient notes 
of a Church, but negatively, as a test, by the application of which 
we exclude certain communities from the title of Christian. It has 
already been observed that the pure preaching of the Word is an 
abstract idea, and that though one Church may in this respect be 
more or less pure than another, it does not cease to be a Church 
because on some points it holds erroneous doctrine: we cannot 
deny the title of a Church to any society of professing Christians 
which administers the sacraments, and teaches truth in funda- 
mentals. But here the question arises, what are to be esteemed 

* Ephes. ii. 20. t Matt, xxxriii. 20. 



THE ONENESS OF THE CHURCH. 341 

fundamentals in Christianity ? or, to put it otherwise, what amount 
or species of error is to be considered as disentitling a society to 
be called a Church of Christ ? We speak frequently of the main 
points of the Christian faith ; what are these main points ? 

That some truths are necessary to be believed in order to salva- 
tion is plainly declared in Scripture. " He that believeth not shall 
be damned;" "there is none other name under heaven given 
among men, whereby we must be saved " * but the name of Jesus 
Christ: — these solemn declarations place it beyond doubt that 
Christianity presents to men some specific form of faith, with the 
reception of which eternal life is connected. Nor can there be a 
more unpromising symptom in any Christian community, or in- 
dividual, than a tendency to merge the distinctive peculiarities of 
the Christian system in natural religion, or to hold it a matter of 
indifference what section of the Christian world we belong to, 
provided we conform to the practical precepts of Scripture. An 
eclecticism of this kind betrays either a lack of earnest religious 
feeling, or an overweening confidence in the powers of human 
reason. Under the veil of fellow-feeling with all parties it too 
often conceals a supercilious contempt for the simple faith of the 
biblical Christian ; whose contracted views, as they are called in 
the current phraseology of this school, may, it is said, suit the 
vulgar, but are not adapted to intellectual Christianity. To per- 
sons of this temper, St. Paul must appear in the light of a bigot 
when he pronounced an anathema against those who taught a 
different Gospel from that which he himself had preached, and 
declared that the error of the Galatian Church was incompatible 
with a saving interest in Christ, f 

But while it is generally admitted that Christianity comprises 
certain articles of faith, without the reception of which no one — 
no church at least — can be called Christian, opinions differ widely 
respecting the means which we possess of determining what these 
articles are ; or, in other words, of arriving at any fixed conclu- 
sion as to what are and what are not to be considered essential 
doctrines of the Gospel. At the very threshold of the question, 
we are met by protestations on the part of a certain school of 
Romanists (not that of Pascal and Fenelon, or even Bossuet and 
Bellarmin) against the whole proceeding, as presumptuous and 
rationalistic. To take upon ourselves, it is said, to determine the 
relative importance of the truths taught in Scripture, to attempt 

• Mark, xvL 16. ; Acts, iv. 12. f Gal. ii. 5. ; v. 2 -4. 



342 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

to reduce Christianity to "a few leading ideas/' to speak of some 
doctrines of the Gospel as principal, and others as subordinate, 
ones, betrays a want of proper humility, as well as a forgetfulness 
of the divine origin of our faith. For the works of God are ever 
beyond our comprehension ; and in any given instance, we can 
neither understand fully all the objects which He may have in 
view, nor pronounce a judgment upon the means necessary to 
secure them. Everything which forms part of revelation being 
important, to affirm of one doctrine, or fact, that it is more im- 
portant than another, is to transgress the limits within which our 
inquiries should be confined. 

The object aimed at by this reasoning is evident, — viz. to make 
it appear that the regulations of polity which Scripture contains 
occupy precisely the same level, as regards importance, with the 
doctrines which it reveals; — that, for example, we have no more 
reas*on to pronounce the doctrine of the Trinity, or that of the 
atonement, to be an essential part of Christianity, than we have to 
pronounce episcopacy to be so. More need not be said upon a 
line of argument so repulsive to the feelings of the Christian, and 
which, when recently brought forward amongst ourselves, excited 
universal and merited reprobation. No words, indeed, can ade- 
quately describe either the spiritual blindness of the reckless 
temerity of those who, in order to prop up an ecclesiastical theory, 
would run the risk of shaking the faith of thousands, and sacrifice 
Christianity itself to the interests of a party. The erroneous 
supposition upon which the whole argument is founded will be 
presently noticed. 

Even among those, however, who do admit that some doctrines 
are more essential than others (and it is probably but a few that 
are prepared seriously to maintain that no distinction of this kind 
is to be made), the rules which have been proposed for discrimi- 
nating between essentials and non-essentials are extremely various. 
The Eomish divines, for the most part, as might be expected, 
make the decision of the Church the rule of fundamentals. Some, 
like Chillingworth, * regard it as sufficient if parties agree in 
holding the inspiration and sufficiency of Scripture; but this rule 
is obviously inadequate for its purpose, for it is not the volume of 
Scripture, but the truths therein contained, that constitutes the 
faith of the Church: the Church held the essential truths of the 
Gospel before the New Testament Scriptures were written. Other 

* Religion of Protestants, Ac. 



THE ONENESS OF THE CHURCH. 343 

rules, proposed by different writers, will be found in Waterland's 
discourse upon this subject : the last-mentioned writer's definition 
of fundamentals is, the doctrines which are necessarily connected 
with the Christian covenant. A covenant, he observes, implies 
seven things : — a founder (God) ; a party covenanted with (man) ; 
the charter of foundation (Scripture) ; a mediator (Christ) ; certain 
conditions (repentance and holiness); aids or means (sacraments, 
&c); and sanctions (the final judgment): — under one or another 
of these heads he conceives every essential doctrine of the Gospel 
may find a place. 

It would be a strange thing if the settlement of the question 
were really so difficult a thing as one would think it to be from a 
perusal of the discussions of theologians upon this subject. For 
since Christianity is not an esoteric system, intended only for the 
initiated few, but emphatically a popular religion, and since Scrip- 
ture, the authentic record of the facts and doctrines upon which 
the religion rests, was originally addressed to, and is evidently 
intended to be a manual for, plain and unlettered readers, it seems 
inconsistent with all we know of the nature of God to suppose that 
He would require, as necessary to salvation, faith in the Gospel, 
without at the same time furnishing us with sufficient means of 
ascertaining what the substance of the Gospel is. The obligation 
to believe presupposes that the subject matter of faith has been 
sufficiently revealed. And has it not been so, in point of fact ? 
Has not the candid inquirer (and it is admitted that none else is 
likely to succeed in the search) abundant means of satisfying 
himself what is to be regarded as essential and immutable, and 
what accidental and mutable, in Christianity? In the following- 
observations, which make no pretence of exhausting the subject, 
some of the chief lines of argument which are open to the inquirer, 
and from the convergence of which in respect to certain heads of 
doctrine the importance of these may be inferred, will be briefly 
pointed out. 

There are two sources of information which, in an inquiry of 
this kind, we are not only permitted, but bound, to consult, — the 
testimony of the Church, and the testimony of Scripture : from the 
former we learn what Christians actually believe, from the latter 
we gather what they are bound to believe. These are the means 
divinely appointed to lead us to the knowledge of Christ ; and 
though they differ widely in authoritative value, with neither of 
them can we safely dispense. The voice of the Church, when it 
occupies its proper place, — when regarded, that is, not as an inde- 



344 CHUECH OF CHRIST. 

pendent source of revelation, but as an expression of the faith of 
that body of Christ in which His Spirit, the same Spirit who 
inspired the sacred authors, dwells, and which appeals for proof 
of its faith to Scripture, must ever possess great value in the eyes 
of the Christian; and is, in fact, by the appointment of divine 
providence, the first instrument of our initiation in the mysteries 
of the Gospel. Now can it be said With any truth that from 
neither of these sources can we collect what are to be considered 
the fundamentals of the Christian faith ? 

With respect to the witness of the Church, it is notorious that 
the fact is otherwise. The best answer to those who tell us that 
Christians cannot, and may not, discriminate between essentials 
and non-essentials is to draw their attention to the matter of fact 
that the Church has ever done, and, at this day, is doing so. 
The doctrines which she feels to be essential to her life she has not 
perhaps set forth in a formal and systematic manner ; but she has 
declared them unequivocally to all who can distinguish between 
the main stream of true Christianity in every age and the infusions 
of error which may from time to time have mingled in it. In 
the first place, we possess an exposition of the Church's faith 
in the three ancient creeds — the Apostles', the Mcene, and the 
Athanasian— which, to this day, constitute the bond of union 
between the Eeformed and the Eomish churches. In these the 
Church has expressed her belief in opposition to certain leading 
heresies; and one of them— the Apostle's Creed — she has ever 
employed as in itself a sufficient test of the catechumen's fitness for 
the sacrament of baptism. A moment's inspection, indeed, of 
these formularies suffices to show that they were never intended to 
be a complete catalogue of fundamentals : for, on the other hand, 
they contain particulars which are confessedly not essential to the 
integrity of Christian doctrine, and, on the other, they omit some 
leading doctrines altogether (as, for instance, the doctrine of justifi- 
cation by faith): still, as far as they go, they must, from the 
circumstances under which they were framed, and the use that has 
ever been made of them, be presumed to contain doctrines which, 
in the judgment of the Church universal, belong to the foundation 
of the Christian faith. And it will be observed that they chiefly 
consist of a statement of the doctrine of the Trinity, and of the 
office which each of the divine persons discharges in the work of 
redemption. Then, again, we have what may be called the float 
ing sentiment or mind of the Church, not declared formally, as in 
the creeds, but scattered here and there, in books, in sermons, or 



THE ONENESS OF THE CHURCH. 345 

in conversation. No one can peruse the writings of eminent 
Christians, whether of ancient or of modern times ; no one can listen 
to the general expression of Christian feeling, without perceiving 
that after all it is a few cardinal points that constitute the life and 
soul of Christianity : at least in the estimation of those who pro- 
fess to have found it efficacious to salvation. A consciousness of 
sin, and, through sin, of estrangement from God, and a conscious- 
ness of redemption from the guilt and power of sin through 
Christ ; — these are the fundamental elements of Christian experi- 
ence, and necessarily determine the relative importance which the 
Christian assigns to the mass of facts brought before him in Scrip- 
ture. For thus, whatever Scripture declares respecting the person 
and work of Christ, the means of union with Him, or the nature 
of the redemption purchased by Him, must be esteemed by Chris- 
tians, whether rightly or wrongly, as essentials of the Gospel. 

Against facts of this kind, which depend upon the direct con- 
sciousness of the renewed mind, abstract arguments are of no 
avail ; of no more avail than the celebrated demonstration of the 
non-existence of motion, against the convictions of him who 
arose and walked. To all reasonings which would persuade her 
that she knows not what the vital truths of the Gospel are, the 
Church replies, "That which we have seen and heard, declare we 
unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us ; and truly 
our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus 
Christ." * Christianity is not primarily a system of doctrines, but 
a life in Christ ; and its truth must be felt before it can be properly 
apprehended. 

Without dwelling longer upon this topic, we may remark the 
strange inconsistency of those who profess to lay great weight 
-upon the authority of the Church in matters of faith, and yet 
affirm that the Church cannot distinguish what are the essential 
articles of the faith. This is, indeed, referring us to a blind 
guide, or, what is nearly equivalent, a guide who is unacquainted 
with the road to be traversed, and can neither inform the traveller 
what dangers he is to avoid, or which, of the many paths that 
may present themselves to him, conducts to his destination. If 
the Church cannot tell us what she esteems to be heresy, and 
what a venial error, she is worse than useless as an instruct! 
in divine truth, and we must look around for some other guide. 
The Protestant, at least, cannot consent so to lower the witnessing 

* 1 John, i. 3. 






346 CHURCH OF CHRIST 



function of the communion of saints considered as, next and 
subordinately to Scripture, the repository of truth; cannot so 
reduce the Church of Christ to the level of the earlier dispensation 
of the law. And this leads us to notice the erroneous supposition 
upon which the whole of the reasoning in question is founded; 
which is nothing but a particular application of the fundamental 
principle of Eomanism, — that Christianity is a republication of 
the law of Moses. For, true it is, that the law dealt with its dis- 
ciples as "children in understanding," which, indeed, they were : 
it prescribed a burdensome ceremonial, the import of which the 
early Jews, at least, did not comprehend, and of the relative 
importance of the parts of which they were, therefore, no judges. 
Of a service which was not "a reasonable" one, no one could 
venture to say that one portion was more important than another; 
any more than the bearer of a system of ciphers to which he does 
not possess the key, could safely take upon himself to expunge 
certain of them as immaterial to the subject-matter of the message 
with which he is intrusted. To this state of spiritual childhood 
the reasoning in question would bring back Christians. It treats 
them as destitute of spiritual discernment; as still behind the 
veil, instead of " beholding with open face the glory of the Lord " 
in Christ Jesus; and, consequently, as unable to discriminate 
between what does, and what does not, vitally affect their fellow- 
ship with Christ. That this is not the light in which Scripture 
regards Christians it is superfluous to observe. An intuitive 
perception of the relative magnitude of objects, whether in the 
material or spiritual world, is the proper prerogative of those 
who, as having emerged from childhood, have their "senses ex- 
ercised to discern " such relations. 

But the Church refers for proof of the genuine Christian char- 
acter — that is, the apostolicity of the faith which she professes — 
to Holy Scripture, which is the authentic standard by which she 
tries "the spirits whether they be of God," and also, it must be 
presumed, her authority for assigning a greater importance to 
some doctrines, or rather some facts, contained in Scripture than 
to others. For it must ever be borne in mind that the doctrines of 
the Gospel are founded upon certain historical facts, of which 
those doctrines are the inspired explanation; a peculiarity this 
which distinguishes Christianity from all false religions. In turn- 
ing, tlien, to Scripture with the view of gaining further light upon 
the point under discussion, we have, in the first place, to remark 
that what has just been said respecting the witness of the Church 



THE ONENESS OF THE CHURCH. 347 

applies here also. For, in one point of view, Scripture is nothing but 
Christian experience supernaturally secured from error ; the inspir- 
ed messengers of Christ having undergone the same conflict which 
we do, and been saved by the same faith by which we are saved. 
Now, can any one read the inspired writings without perceiving 
that, in the estimation of the Apostles, salvation, which is the 
proper end and scope of the Gospel, is specially connected with 
the reception of certain truths, while it is not so with others? Is 
it really the case that Scripture places everything which it records 
exactly on the same level, so that we cannot tell whether the 
institution of deaconesses, for example, be not as essential a 
part of Christianity as the incarnation of Christ ? 

"Other foundation," says St. Paul, "can no man lay than that 
is laid, which is Jesus Christ."* Christ, the eternal Son in our 
nature, fulfilling the law for us, and for us suffering its penalty, 
and so opening the kingdom of heaven to all believers, is the 
fundamental fact of the Gospel. To believe the Apostles' testi- 
mony concerning Christ, — viz. that God was in Him, "reconciling 
the world unto Himself," and that, the work of redemption being 
accomplished, God raised Him from the dead and set Him at His 
own right hand in the heavenly places, — brings with it salvation ; 
for the faith which receives these inspired declarations both oblite- 
rates the guilt and emancipates the heart from the power of sin. 
Accordingly, around the person and work of Christ, and on the 
supposition of the existence of living faith in Him, the Apostles 
arrange in concentric circles all the mysteries which they reveal, 
all the duties which they inculcate. By Him they profess to live 
spiritually ; to Him they trace up grace of every kind ; and the 
feelings of trust and love, the acts of adoration and worship, which 
it would be blasphemy in one creature to cherish towards, or 
render to, another, they are found exhibiting towards the man 
Christ Jesus. If the Socinian, then, should urge either that the 
divinity of Christ is not taught or implied in Scripture, or that it 
is not a fundamental doctrine, we have but to bid him examine 
whether the experience of his spiritual life, in reference to Christ, 
accords with that of the Apostles. 

But, besides this indirect evidence, which, it is admitted, can be 
fully appreciated only by those whose Christian instincts are in 
harmony with those of the Apostles, Scripture gives us no small 
direct aid in determining the fundamentals of the Gospel. The 

• 1 Cor. iii. 11. 



348 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 






remark that Scripture presents us with no summary of the chief 
articles of the Christian faith, like the so-called Apostles' creed, * 
just as it is in the main, is not to be admitted without some degree 
of limitation. Whatever may be the full import of the form pre- 
scribed by our Lord for the administration of baptism, — to be 
baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost, — that is, to be a recognized member of a Christian 
Church, — must, at the least, imply faith in the existence of the 
three Divine Persons, or a belief of the doctrine of the Trinity. 
Such passages, also, as 1 Cor. xv. 1 — 4., part of which is evidently 
incorporated in the Apostles' creed ; Ephes. iv. 4 — 6., where the 
fundamental unities of the Church are enumerated ; Heb. vi. 1, 2., 
which contains several of "the principles of the doctrine of 
Christ;" and 1 Tim. iii. 16., are, in this point of view, very im- 
portant ones : taken together they go a long way towards furnish- 
ing the whole substance of the earliest creed. It is, however, not 
so much in its positive as in its exclusive declarations that Scrip- 
ture provides us with data for the determination of the present 
question : not so much, that is, in what it states to be of the 
essence of Christian faith, as in what it pronounces to be incom- 
patible with, the truth of the Gospel. The reader of Scripture, 
who has not turned his attention particularly to this point, will 
be surprised to find how many doctrines there are which, from, the 
language in which the opposite error is denounced, we may at 
once infer to be fundamental. To mention some : — we thus gather 
from 1 John, ii. 23., that the divinity, and from 1 John, iv. 3., that 
the incarnation, of Christ are fundamental articles of Christian 
faith : from 1 Cor. xv. we draw the same conclusion respecting the 
resurrection of the body : and St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians 
teaches us that to deny the doctrine of justification by faith with- 
out the works of the law is to fall from grace. 

Another important line of argument may be derived from the 
two divinely appointed ordinances of the Gospel — Baptism and 
the Lord's Supper. Besides being, in conjunction with the Word, 
covenanted channels of grace, those ordinances are intended to 
symbolise and teach, by means of representation and commemor- 
ation, the doctrines of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and the 
atonement of Christ : they are, to adopt the language of Gerhard, 
a verbum visibile. Now, when we bear in mind that one charac- 
teristic distinction of the Christian, as compared with the Mosaic, 



• See Whateley's Essays, 1st Series, Essay 6. 



THE ONENESS OF THE CHUKCH. 449 

economy is the absence of symbol and ritual, the substitution of 
what is intellectual and spiritual for what is typical and visible, 
we can have little difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the 
reason why the two doctrines just mentioned, besides being taught 
in Scripture, are also visibly represented by typical and comme- 
morative ordinances, is that they are of paramount importance in 
the Christian scheme. Yice versa, the essential character of the 
doctrines of the new birth and of the atonement being admitted, 
we may hence infer the importance of the two rites in which they 
are visibly expressed; and, on this ground, as well as on that 
of their being the only Gospel rites to which grace is, by covenant, 
annexed, assign to the Christian Sacraments a place which no other 
ordinances can be permitted to usurp. 

It is in this way, by the combination of various considerations, 
which, like the evidences of Christianity, confirm, and throw cross- 
lights upon, each other, that we determine, in general, what are to 
be esteemed the fundamentals of the Gospel, and what is to be 
placed in a different category ; and, consequently, what differences 
of opinion may exist between communities, professing to be Chris- 
tian, without cutting them off from the Church of Christ. If, after 
all, we cari neither furnish a complete catalogue of fundamentals, 
nor exactly define the boundary line between truth and error, it 
must be remembered that the whole subject is one which, from its 
nature, belongs rather to the sphere of the moral, or, more properly, 
the spiritual, judgment, than to that of the understanding; and 
that to strike the just mean between unduly multiplying essentials 
on the one hand, and, on the other, abandoning truths apart from 
which Christianity becomes merely an improved version of natural 
religion, belongs to a wisdom which the Church, indeed, should 
ever be aiming at, and which she must believe she is in some mea- 
sure in possession of ; but which it would be too much to say she 
has as yet perfectly attained. 

It only remains to observe that the exclusiveness of the Church, 
in the sense in which it has been here considered, has reference, 
not to individuals, but to societies. It would be in the highest 
degree presumptuous to pronounce positively what measure of 
Christian faith is necessary to the salvation of a particular in- 
dividual; so manifold are the differences of opportunity and 
natural capacity which must here be taken into account, and must 
check any rashness of decision upon our part. The question only 
relates to what Waterland calls fundamentals "in the abstract," 
or, the terms of Church communion : we profess no more than to 






350 



CHURCH OF CHRIST 






determine whether a society, calling itself Christian, deserves that 
title or not. The patristic, or Komish, theory which makes polity 
instead of doctrine the essential note of a Church, leads, among 
other evils, to the assumption of a power of pronouncing upon the 
state of individuals ; and while the Protestant only ventures to 
say that that is not a true Church where neither is the pure Word 
of God preached nor the Sacraments duly administered, the 
Tridentine fathers, following in the track which Augustine hac" 
marked out for them, pronounce every individual not in comma 
nion with the Eoman pontiff to be out of the pale of salvation. 






Section III. 



THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 



That a somewhat different conception of the sanctity of the 
body of Christ — the only attribute that remains to be consid- 
ered — should be entertained by Komanists and Protestants re- 
spectively, is, from the principles of each party, inevitable. Since, 
according to the Komish definition, the Catholic Church is a 
visible corporation, having its true being in its outward charac- 
teristics, and comprehending, according to the idea, both the evil 
and the good, the sanctity which belongs to such a body can, of 
course, be a merely external one, or a sanctity which does not 
necessarily imply the personal holiness of those who compose the 
body. The statements of the Komish Catechism to this effect have 
been already adduced. The Church, we are told, is called holy, 
because, as a body, it is separated, in the same sense in which the 
vessels of the tabernacle were, or, the Catechism might have 
added, as the Jewish people was, to the service of God, the instru- 
ments and signs of separation being a profession of the true faith 
and the sacrament of baptism ; because in the Church the means 
of sanctity, the sacraments, &c. are to be found; and because 
Christ, the Head of the body, is holy. Such, according to the 
doctrine of Kome, is the only sanctity which is predicable of the 
body of Christ; the individual members of which, therefore, may 
be, for anything to the contrary in the theory, destitute of per- 






THE SANCTITY OF THE CHUECH. 351 

sonal holiness. For we must not suffer ourselves to be misled by 
the ambiguity of some of the expressions of the Catechism re- 
specting the union of the Church with Christ, from which we 
should naturally infer that she must be under the dominion of 
Christ's spirit. By those who " believe and have been baptized 
into Christ" are meant, not true believers, but all who, whatever 
may be their inward state, profess the Christian faith and receive 
the sacrament externally. Hence, as this is all that is necessary 
to make men true members of the true Church, the latter may, 
according to the theory, consist of such as the Apostle had in 
view when he declared of certain who bore the Christian name 
that they were " the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose god is 
their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly 
things ;" * the characters of whom Augustin says that cum gemitu 
intus tolerantur. It is only their instinctive Christian feeling 
which has withheld the Eomish theologians from openly maintain- 
ing this revolting doctrine. 

If internal — that is, real — sanctity be, in the eyes of the 
Komanist, a separable accident — an opus supererogationis — with 
the Protestant it is, on the contrary, an essential characteristic of 
the body of Christ. He cannot conceive such a thing as a union 
with the Head which is not, and may never have been, productive 
of any sanctifying effects : a branch of a tree, though it may be 
now decaying, or even dead, must once have partaken of the sap, 
and given evidence that it did so. Indeed, the statements of the 
Eomish theologians on this point carry with them their own refu- 
tation. Affirming, as they do rightly, that the holiness of the 
members is a consequence of their union with the Head, from 
whom all holiness is derived, they had only to inquire further in 
what sense is the Head holy ? for it will be admitted that there 
must be a congruity, if not in degree, yet in kind, between the 
holiness of the Head and that of the members. This would have 
-led them to see that, since the holiness of Christ the Head consists 
in actual freedom from all sin, that of the members must consist, 
at least, in deliverance from the dominion of sin. 

Further observations in support of the Protestant doctrine upon 
this point seem to be unnecessary : for all that has been previously 
urged in support of the position that the true idea of the Church 
is, that it is a community of those in whom the Spirit of God 
dwells, goes also to prove that the proper sanctity of the Church 

* Phil. iii. 18, 19. 



352 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

is its internal sanctity, apart from which the external acts or signs 
of consecration lose all their value. They only are in Christ, in 
the full sense of that expression, who receive from him quicken- 
ing grace ; and they who receive quickening, receive at the same 
time sanctifying, grace. It may, however, be proper, with the 
view of obviating objections, to remark that, in maintaining that 
the sanctity of the true Church is a real and not a nominal one, it 
is not meant that it is, or ever can be, in this life, perfect : at best, 
it is but an approximation to the perfect standard exhibited in 
Christ. It is not, however, on that account the less a real, present, 
work of the Spirit. When the Apostle describes the Church as 
being "a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any 
such thing, holy and without blemish," he speaks, indeed, rather 
of what it will be than of what it actually is ; but it must never 
be forgotten that its future state of perfection is but the consum- 
mation of a work which is begun here. In a real, therefore, and 
important sense the Apostle's language is applicable to the Church 
even in its present condition : it describes what she will be by 
virtue of what she is ; what the seed of holiness now implanted 
will issue in hereafter : it describes what even now she aims at, 
though she can never say that she has attained, or is already per- 
fect. For if the sanctity of Christ's members be imperfect, it is 
yet continually progressive. It possesses, like all life, a principle 
of growth; and the "new man," after the analogy of the human 
body, advances through the several stages of infancy, youth, and 
manhood, until "the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ" is in the life to come attained.* In proportion as spiritual 
illumination, and power of holiness, increase, the discrepancy 
between the Christian's present state and the ideal which is before 
his mind becomes more vividly felt; and this feeling, again, 
prompts him to fresh efforts ; and thus, through the reciprocal 
action of obedience upon knowledge and knowledge upon obedi- 
ence, "the path of the just" becomes "like the shining light, 
which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." And who 
can affirm that this progressive advancement in sanctification is 
to terminate with the present life ? In a negative sense, indeed, 
the Christian will, in a future state, be at once perfected ; he will 
be, that is, completely released from " the body of sin and death " 
which he here bears about with him : but, as regards positive 
advancement in holiness, there may be before him a field of pro- 

* 1 Pet. ii. 2.; 1 Cor. iii. 1.; 1 John, ii. 13.; Ephes. ir. 14. 






THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 3o3 

gress as unlimited as eternity itself, and the measure of sanctity 
with which he commences his career above may bear but the same 
proportion to what it is destined to become, as his present attain- 
ments do to that incipient stage of his heavenly existence. 

Since the proper sanctity of Christ's body is, according to the 
foregoing observations, not corporate merely, but personal, the 
work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Christians, it is, of 
course, as such, invisible : we have, in the next place, then, to in- 
quire in what manner it gives visible evidence of its existence. 

The Spirit of God, by purifying the fountain, makes the streams 
sweet ; so that where the heart is truly under the influence of di- 
vine grace, the fruits of the spirit will be, in greater or less 
measure, exhibited. In this respect, the Church of Christ ought 
to be, and in fact is, whenever, by the agency of persecution, 
purging off from her the foreign elements with which she is in 
external conjunction, she is brought to correspond more closely 
with the idea, "a city set upon an hill" which "cannot be hid." 
The history of modern civilization is a record of the mighty prac- 
tical influence exerted upon a world which naturally lies in 
wickedness by the measure of visible sanctity, imperfect as it is, 
which the Church is enabled to bring forth. It is a perilous mode 
of reasoning, and likely to lead to universal scepticism, to main- 
tain, for the sake of theoretical consistency, that the visible fruits 
of the Spirit do not possess a sufficiently distinctive character to 
enable us to pronounce where they are and where they are not : 
not to mention that the sin of denying the evident operation of 
the Holy Spirit is spoken of by our Lord in terms far too awful 
not to make us tremble at the thought of verging towards it. The 
fruits of the Spirit, whether they be produced within our own in- 
closure or beyond it, are always the same, and always to be recog 
nized ; otherwise our Lord would never have given us the simple 
test whereby we are to distinguish false from true prophets, — 
" by their fruits ye shall know them." He does not deem it ne- 
cessary to explain further what is good, and what evil, fruit ; for 
He supposes his hearers not to be destitute of common sense, and 
ordinary moral perceptions ; He presumes that they are capable 
of distinguishing between the works of God and the works of 
Satan. If men profess not to be able to do so, they simply pro- 
fess that they have neither conscience nor moral sense. In short, 
to maintain that we cannot distinguish the genuine fruits of the 
Spirit from those which appear to be so, but are not, is on a par 
with maintaining that we cannot be sure that the miracles of 

23 






354 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



Christ were the work of God because Satan also may produce 
supernatural effects. The practical holiness of Christians, wher- 
ever it appear, cannot, we may be sure, come of what is evil. 

One visible manifestation, then, of the sanctity of the Church 
is the holy walk and conversation of individual Christians: but 
there is another, and more formal, mode in which she professes 
herself to be holy, and that is, by the exercise of discipline. The 
personal holiness of the Christian is a property of the individual, 
not of the society as such, hence a professing Christian society, 
however large a proportion of holy men it may contain, does not 
predicate of itself that it is a part of Christ's holy Church as long 
as it exercises no formal official act, implying that assumption. 
The exercise of discipline is the true and legitimate expression of 
the sanctity of a visible Church, considered as a society. Hence 
the great importance of discipline. It is not merely that the ab- 
sence of it operates injuriously upon the tone and standard of 
piety within the Church ; it affects the claim of the society as such 
to be a legitimate member of the visible Church Catholic. A 
Christian society which should openly profess to dispense with 
discipline, and tolerate, on principle, open and notorious evil doers 
within its pale, would thereby renounce its title to one of the 
essential attributes of the Church : it would sever all ostensible 
connexion between itself and the true Church, of which sanctity 
is an inseparable property: in short, it would unchurch itself. 
For every particular church is so called on the supposition of its 
being a manifestation, more or less true, of the one holy Church, 
— the body of Christ. It is on this ground that some of the Pro- 
testant confessions — e. g. the Scotch, and our own homilies* — 
make discipline one of the essential notes of a true Church : nor 
does it appear they are far wrong in so doing. The power of 
ecclesiastical correction is one of the few which have been con- 
ferred upon each Christian society by Christ Himself (Matt, xviii. 
17.) ; it is that which distinguishes a Church from a mere casual 
assemblage of Christians ; as indeed it is evident that a commu- 
nity which does not possess the power of admonishing, and, in 
the last resort, expelling an unworthy member, cannot be called a 
society in any proper sense of the word. It is true that ecclesias- 
tical censures, being applicable only to overt transgressions, par- 
take of the imperfection which belongs to the Church in all its 
visible organization and corporate acts : secret unbelievers, or 

* Second part of the Sermon for Whitsunday. 



THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 355 

hypocrites, must be left to the judgment of the great day. Still, 
imperfect though the process be, each church is bound, by casting 
out of its communion those whose vicious lives prove that they 
have already excluded themselves from the invisible communion 
of saints, to testify, as far as it can do, that it is, according to the 
idea, a part of that communion, and, therefore, a holy society. 
How essential to the idea of a Church the exercise of discipline is, 
may be seen from the embarrassing contrarieties between theory 
and practice which the virtual suspension of it in the Church of 
England is constantly occasioning. 

That excommunication, and ecclesiastical censures of every* 
kind, should ever be carefully disjoined from civil penalties it is 
needless to remark. -To call in the secular power to enforce 
spiritual censures, or to attach temporal penalties to ecclesiastical 
offences, is to lose sight entirely of the spiritual nature of the 
Gospel dispensation, and to obscure and debase the true functions 
of the Church. The history of the inquisition is the best comment 
upon the tendencies of this evil principle, which took its rise 
naturally from that identification of the kingdom of Christ with 
the kingdoms of this world which the papacy presents. Unhappily 
it survived the partial destruction of the papal power at the 
reformation ; and it is only in recent times that even Protestants 
have come to recognize the sin, and the fruitlessness, of all attempts 
to infringe the inalienable rights of conscience. There can be little 
doubt that the association in men's minds between excommunica- 
tion and civil disabilities has materially contributed to prevent, or 
to retard, in our own church the restoration, so much desired by 
all parties, of a power of separating from her communion those 
whose lives are in open contrariety with their Christian profession. 
In purely spiritual censures, when seen in their true light, there 
is quite enough to make them formidable to those who have any 
proper feeling of the value of Christian privileges : they can well 
dispense with an adventitious aid, which, while it professes to sup- 
port and strengthen, does, in reality, by corrupting the idea, rob 
them of their proper power. 

After all that a church can do in this respect, there will still 
remain in outward communion with it many who are not inwardly 
sanctified, — the tares and the bad fish, which the Lord Himself 
alone can separate. The Montanist, and Novatian, and subse- 
quently the Donatist, schism sprang from a principle true in itself, 
but pushed beyond the limits of sobriety. They were caused by 
the sense, peculiarly strong in earnest minds, of the discrepancy 






356 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









between the church as it is and as it ought to be, as regards the 
attribute of sanctity ; and proceeded upon the erroneous expecta- 
tion, that, by increasing the rigour of discipline, and denying 
reconciliation to the lapsed, the visible church might be brought 
to be identical with the mystical body of Christ. A vain attempt, 
which recoiled upon its authors, and introduced greater disorders, 
and even greater laxity of practice, than those which it was in- 
tended to remedy. Augustin's account of the moral state of the 
Donatists, * its trustworthiness being presumed, conveys a warning 
example to all who would attempt to establish a perfectly pure 
church upon earth. 

In contending against his Donatist adversaries, Augustin makes 
a very near approach to the Protestant idea of the invisible 
Church. It would seem, both from his and Cyprian's passing 
notices of the existing state of things, that the exercise of dis- 
cipline had in the Catholic Church, become much relaxed ; many 
of openly vicious life being tolerated in her communion, lest, if 
discipline were enforced, they should withdraw and join the ranks 
of schism. When urged by the Donatists to explain how a 
church which comprised within its pale such unsanctifled mem- 
bers could be called "holy," Augustin had recourse to a distinc- 
tion, not between the visible and the true Church, but in the mode 
of belonging to the visible Church, which, according to him, is 
twofold, — real and apparent. The wicked, he says, "seem to be 
in the Church, but are not." f " Whether they seem to be within 
the Church, or are openly separate from it, matters not, that which 
is flesh is flesh : whether they remain in the threshing floor in 
their natural sterility, or through temptation, as by the wind, are 
scattered from it, that which is chaff remains chaff. He who is in 
a state of carnal obduracy, though he may (externally) belong to 
the congregation of saints, is yet ever separate from the unity of 
that church which is without spot or wrinkle." J Again: "they 
are not, as Cyprian says, ' devoted to the Church ' who live con- 
trary to the commands of Christ ; nor are they in any way to be 
esteemed members of that Church, which He (Christ) so washes 
with water by the Word, as that he may present it to Himself a 
glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. 

* "Africa electa est, ubi purgata massa consisteret, caeteram omnem terram palea separata 
vestiret. Unde ergo tanta) turboe circumcellionum ? Unde ergo tantae turbae ebriosorum, 
et innuptaruin sed non incorruptarum innumerabilia stupra feininarum ? Unde tanta turba 
raptorum, avarorura, foeneratorum ? — Non sunt ista? Anne hoo triticum est? v» impu- 
dentissimae negationi, si apud se ista non esse ; vae sceleratissimse perversitati, si frumenta 
esse responderent."— Cont. Epist Par. lib. iii. s. 18. 

t De Bap. Cont. Don. lib. i. s. 26. frbid. lib. i. 8. 26. 



THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 357 

But since not to be a member of a church is not to be in it ; it fol- 
lows that they are not in the church of which it is said, 'my dove 
is one, she is the only one of her mother.' Or can any one assert 
that they are members of this dove who renounce the world in 
words but not in deeds." * Again : " it is the dove that retains, the 
dove that remits (sins) ; unity retains, unity remits. But the recon- 
ciling power of this unity is only in the good ; either those who 
are actually spiritual, or who, by peaceful obedience, are progress- 
ing to spiritual things ; in the evil it is not, whether they excite 
tumults in a state of schism, or are tolerated with groaning with- 
in." f Once more, in a still more striking passage : " whereas in 
the Song of Solomon the church is described as ' a garden inclosed, 
a spring shut up, a fountain sealed,' I dare not understand this 
save of the just and the holy ; not of the covetous, and fraud- 
ulent, plunderers and usurers, drunkards or envious persons, who 
nevertheless had, as we learn from Cyprian's Epistles, a common 
baptism with the righteous." \ 

To the Donatist objection, that by this doctrine he was making 
two Churches, Augustin replies that this was not the case ; he was 
only distinguishing between two different conditions, or states, of 
one and the same church, — its condition in this world, and its 
condition in the life to come. Here it is mixed up with evil men, 
from whom it will be purified in its future state. " The Catholics 
proved the agreement of Scripture with itself, by observing that 
those passages which speak of the Church as having evil men 
mingled in it, signify its condition in the present world; while 
those which speak of it as without any admixture of evil, denote 
what it is to be hereafter in eternity." § "Concerning the two 
churches, the Catholics refuted the Donatist calumnies by explain- 
ing that they did not mean that the church which now contains 
wicked men within its pale is different from the kingdom of God 
in which there is no admixture of evil, but that the same one holy 
Church is now in one condition, and hereafter will be in another ; 
now has evil men in its communion, and hereafter" (i. e. when 
Christ finally separates the evil from the good) "will be without 
them." 1 



* De Bap. Conk Don. lib. iv. s. 4. 

t Ibid. lib. iii. e. 23. "Columba tenet, columba dimittit." Columba, "the dove," is tbe 
usual term with Augustin for what Protestants would call the invisible Church. 

X Ibid. lib. v. s. 38. A multitude of other passages to the same effect might be collected 
from Augustin's works. 

I Brev. Coll. d. iii. s. 16. |] Ibid. s. 20. 




358 



CHURCH OF CHE 1ST, 






The passages cited exhibit a remarkable approximation to the 
statements of the Protestant formularies ; and it may appear diffi- 
cult to discover a difference between Augustin's doctrine and that 
of his disciples of the reformation. Nevertheless there is a dis- 
tinction between them. It is this: while Augustin ; led by Scrip- 
ture and the instinct of a spiritual mind, speaks of the righteous 
as constituting (to use his own metaphor) "the soul of the church/ 7 
— the true and proper part of it (for, as he says, "that is not the 
body of Christ which shall not reign with Christ eternally"), he 
yet views the wicked as being also, after their manner, true mem- 
bers of the mystical body of Christ; members, not in the same 
sense indeed in which the righteous are, but still real members: 
that is, the Church is, according to him, a visible institution to 
which both the evil and the good equally belong. In the follow- 
ing passage of Bellarmin, framed from Augustin's writings, the 
theory of that father is well expressed: — "Some belong both to 
the soul and the body of the Church" (the "soul" being the 
inward work of the Spirit), "and thus are in union with Christ 
both outwardly and inwardly, and are most perfectly members of 
the Church: some, again, belong to the soul and not to the body, 
as pious catechumens; and, lastly, some" (the wicked) "are of the 
body and not of the soul." * 

These last are evidently, according to Augustin's view, real 
members of the body of Christ : and here is the true point of dis- 
tinction between his doctrine and that of the reformers. The idea 
of the Church is not the same to each. According to Augustin 
the body of Christ is a visible community, external communion 
with which is indispensable to salvation, but of which men may be 
members without being inwardly sanctified by the Spirit ; according 
to the teaching of the reformers, it is an invisible body, the mem- 
bers of which are all in saving union with Christ. The Protestant 
affirms, not as Augustin does, that "the wicked are the least per- 
fect members of Christ's body," but, that the wicked, though they 
may be in external communion with a local church, are not, in 
any sense, members of the mystical body of Christ. This appa- 
rently unimportant difference involves the essential point in dis- 
pute ; as may be gathered from the fact that Bellarmin, and other 
Komish writers, while they strenuously contend against the genu- 
ine Protestant doctrine, make no scruple to adopt Augustin's views 
on this point. They affirm, and justly, that the question is, not 






* Do Eccles. mil. c. 2. 



THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 359 

concerning more or less perfect church-membership, but concerning 
the minimum of qualification requisite to constitute a man a mem- 
ber of Christ's body ; * and, as Augustin would have done, they 
determine it to be an external profession of faith, and an external 
participation in the Sacraments, it being a matter of indifference 
whether internal grace be present or not. 

To attempt to discuss the numerous questions which might be 
raised respecting the mode of administering discipline, or the 
various degrees of it, would be inconsistent with the scope of a 
work which professes only to illustrate general principles. An 
opportunity of noticing one point of inquiry of some importance 
— viz. with whom does the ultimate right of exercising discipline 
rest, the whole congregation consisting of people and pastors, or 
the pastors alone? — will occur hereafter. 

* De Eccles. mil. c. 2. 






BOOK III. 






THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 






That the Christian ministry, considered in the abstract, is 
of divine origin, is affirmed not less by Protestants than by 
Romanists. With the following statements of the Confession of 
Augsburgh and the first Helvetic Confession, all the Protestant 
confessions will be fonnd to agree : — "That we may attain to sav- 
ing faith, the ministry of the "Word and the Sacraments was insti- 
tuted. For through the Word and the Sacraments, as instruments, 
the Holy Spirit, the author of faith, is given. They — i. e. the 
Protestants — condemn the Anabaptists, whose opinion it is that 
the Holy Spirit is given to men apart from the external Word." * 
"God has always employed ministers to establish and govern his 
Church; He employs them now, and will do so as long as there is 
a Church upon earth. The origin, therefore, institution, and office, 
of Christian ministers are from God himself. God could, indeed, 
by an immediate exercise of his power, gather a Church out of 
mankind ; but he chooses rather to deal with men through the 
ministry of men." f That, as the clergy alone are not the Church, 
so that is not a Church which has no pastors (j(OQ K ig rovrcov 
Uxlrjcia bv xalhrai), is a principle admitted on both sides. It is 
only thus far, however, that the opposite parties find themselves 
on common ground ; for when the further questions arise, how is 
it that the ministerial function comes into existence, and is per- 
petuated in the Church ; and what is the relation in which those 
invested with that function stand to the other members of a Chris- 
tian society? grave differences of view will be found to exist 
between them. It is, in fact, on these two points, the former of 
which relates to what is commonly called the doctrine of the apos- 
tolical succession, the latter to the powers of the clerical body, 
that the controversy between Romanists and Protestants mainly 
hinges. 



360 



* Conf. Aug. Art. 5. 



t Conf. Hel. Prim. c. 18. 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE ORIGIN AND PERPETUATION OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 

The apostolicity of the Church is an attribute which belongs to 
it as a Christian society ; for no community can establish its claim 
to the title of Christian unless there be a substantial agreement 
between its doctrines and institutions, and those of the inspired 
persons to whom Christ delivered a commission to establish His 
Church upon earth. What constitutes a true derivation from the 
Apostles, and in what manner the latter still preside in every 
society which has a valid claim to the title of Christian; — upon 
these points differences of opinion may exist : but upon the neces- 
sity of an Apostolical succession, and the perpetuity of Apostolic 
government in the Church, in some sense of the words, all sections 
of orthodox Christianity — certainly the Protestant and the Komish 
Churches — are agreed. 

It has already been observed, that while the Protestant makes 
the essential point of connexion with the Apostles to consist in 
the succession of doctrine, the Komanist regards the Apostolicity 
of the Church as mainly consisting in the visible succession of a 
ministry derived from the Apostles ; the opposition in this, as in 
other points of the controversy, being not absolute, but relative. 
But the phrase " Apostolicity of ministry " itself admits of a two- 
fold meaning : it may signify either that a certain form of Church 
polity resembles that instituted by the Apostles, or that in a certain 
line of succession, and in that alone, certain spiritual powers 
supposed to be essential to the validity of ministerial acts, have 
been transmitted from the Apostles, the first possessors of those 
powers. An instance or two will serve to make this distinction 
clear. During the continuance of the Donatist schism, there were 
Donatist and Catholic episcopal churches, the form of polity 
adopted by the sectaries being identical with that of the body 
from which they separated : consequently, the episcopal form of 
Church government being presumed to be the Apostolical one, the 
Donatist churches might, on account of their retention of that 
form, be called Apostolical : but they were not so in the other 
sense of the word, for they had broken the continuity of succes- 
sion ; they could not trace the title of their bishops in an uninter- 

261 



362 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 






rupted line up to the Apostles : and therefore, according to Cyprian 
and Augustin, they had not amongst them those spiritual sacer- 
dotal powers which those fathers supposed to be handed down only 
in the one direct line of succession. Similarly, if any of the sects 
around us were to abandon their present polity, and in its place 
to establish a threefold ministry, corresponding in functions and 
in title with our bishops, presbyters, and deacons, by no means an 
inconceivable case there would be in that community episcopacy 
indeed, but not the succession, or the sacerdotal powers connected 
therewith : and, according to Church principles, the change would 
have no effect in rendering its ministry more legitimate, or the 
acts of that ministry more valid, than they had previously been. 
It is with Apostolicity in the latter sense of the word that we have 
now to do. The Apostolic form of the Christian ministry having 
already been made a subject of discussion, the alleged devolution 
of Apostolic powers remains to be considered. It is evident, from 
what has been said above, that in this, and not in the mere identity 
of form, lies the essence of the so-called doctrine of the Apos- 
tolical succession. The present question relates, not to episcopacy, 
or any other form of polity as such, for under any form sacerdotal 
powers might have been transmitted, but to the alleged fact and 
nature of the transmission itself: episcopacy itself is affirmed to 
be essential to the Church chiefly because it is supposed that in 
and through the episcopate the original Apostolic commissioD, or 
rather the spiritual powers connected therewith, has been derived 
to the existing bishops, and through them to the inferior ministers 
of the Church. 

The Romish doctrine of the Apostolical succession, which alone 
can claim the merit of being intelligible and consistent, is thus set 
forth in the formularies of Trent: — It is a principle everywhere 
laid down in Scripture, that no one may presume to undertake 
sacerdotal functions without a divine commission empowering him 
so to do. The authority of an ambassador to act as such must be 
derived from the supreme magistrate ; otherwise his acts are null 
and void, and he himself liable to punishment : how much more 
strictly must we suppose this rule to be observed in the case of 
those who are the ambassadors of heaven, and "stewards of the 
mysteries of God ; " the appointed channels of communication 
between God and man, and the representatives of God upon earth* 
Among the Jews, as we know, "no man" took "this honour to 



* "Cum episcopi et sacerdotes, tanquam Doi interpretes et internuncii quid* 
ipsius Dei personam in tcrris gerunt."— Cat. Cone. Trid. p. 2. c. 7. s. 2. 



sint, qui 






ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 363 

himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron ; " and every 
attempt on the part of unauthorized persons to inyade the priest's 
office was visited by God with severe penalties. For this offence, 
Corah and his company were destroyed, and Uzziah struck with 
leprosy ; for the same, Saul was deprived of his kingdom. If this 
was the case under the old dispensation, how much more reason 
haye we to expect to find it so under the new, seeing the Christian 
priesthood as much excels the Levitical in dignity, as the new law 
is superior to the old. As regards matter of fact: we find that 
Christ Himself did not enter upon His public ministry until He 
had been anointed with the Spirit, and commissioned thereto by a 
voice from Heaven ; and throughout His ministry, He is found 
constantly insisting upon His divine mission : "the Word which 
ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me " (John, xiv. 
24.). In like manner when he was about to delegate the govern- 
ment of the Church to the Apostles, He gave them a formal com- 
mission to exercise the apostolic office: "As my Father hath sent 
me, so send I you" (John, xx. 21.). Thus divinely commissioned 
by the Lord of the Vineyard, the Apostles went forth preaching 
the Gospel; and when Christian societies multiplied, and it be- 
came impossible for the inspired ambassadors of Christ to exercise 
a personal superintendence over every church, they delegated a 
portion of their authority to others, whom they appointed to the 
pastoral office, transmitting to them at the same time the ordinary 
sacerdotal grace which they had themselves received from Christ. 
The Apostolic delegates in their turn handed down the ministerial 
commission to their successors ; and thus it has descended to the 
present time, each member of the series receiving, at his ordina- 
tion, or consecration, both the commission and the powers which 
belonged to his predecessors. 

The power thus transmitted from hand to hand is two-fold, — a 
power of order and a power of jurisdiction. By the former is 
meant the power of consecrating, offering, and ministering, the 
body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist ; by the latter, the power 
of absolution, which is concerned with the government and guid- 
ance of the mystical body of Christ. * These powers were con- 

• "Hoc autera (sacerdotium) ab eodera Domino Salvatore nostro institutum esse, atque 
apostolis, eorumque successoribus in sacerdotio, potestatera traditam conseorandi, offerendi 
et ministrandi corpus et sanguinem ejus, necnon et peccata dimittendi et retinondi, sacra 
literal ostendunt, et Catholicce ecclesise traditio semper docuit."— Cone. Trid. Scss. 2'i. c. 1. 
"Intelligant fideles . . quanta ipsi ecclesiae ejusque ministris potestas divinitus tribute -it. 
Ea autem duplex est, ordinis et jurisdictionis. Ordinis potestas ad verum Gbristi Domini 
corpus in sacrosancta Eucharidtia refcrtur. Jurisdictionis vero potestas tota in Cbristi oor- 






364 



CHURCH OP CHRIST. 









ferred upon the Apostles on distinct occasions : they were made 
priests, and received the power of order, when our Lord at the 
Last Supper delivered them His body to eat, and His blood to 
drink : * and they received the power of jurisdiction, when, after 
His resurrection, Christ sent them forth with His own delegated 
authority : " Keceive ye the Holy Ghost ; whosesoever sins ye remit, 
they are remitted unto them : and whosesoever sins ye retain, they 
are retained " (John, xx. 22, 23). f By the Apostles these powers 
were transmitted to their successors, and by them in turn to 
theirs; and thus, by perpetual derivation, they have descended 
to the present church. 

The external instrument of transmission is the Sacrament of 
Orders, the administration of which belongs to the bishop alone. 
The visible sign of the Sacrament is — after the apostolic preced- 
ent — the laying on of hands ; the inward effect is two-fold: first, 
the impressing upon the soul of a spiritual character, or stamp, 
which is indelible, so that he who is once made a priest can never 
return to the condition of a layman ; and, secondly, grace, not 
sanctifying, but ministerial (gratia gratis data), for the valid 
performance of sacerdotal functions. J 

This theory of the apostolical succession is, as has been 
observed, clear and consistent ; and the conclusions which follow 
from it are obvious. Where there are no sacraments, and no 
forgiveness of sins, there is, as all admit, no Church; but there 
are no sacraments, at least no Eucharist, nor is there any absolu- 
tion, where there is no lawful priesthood ; and there is no legiti- 
mate priesthood where there are no true bishops — successors of 
the Apostles — to administer the sacrament of orders; and those 



pore mystico versatur."— Cat. Cone. Trid. p. 2. c. 7. s. 11. "Observanduin est in ordinatione 
presbyteroruni, de quibus praecipue disputatur, duas conferri potestates : unain consecrandi 
Eucharistiam, quae dicitur potestas in corpus Christi verum : alteram absolvendi a peccatis, 
quae dicitur potestas in corpus Christi mysticum."— Bellarmin. De Sac. Ord. c. 9. 

*"Si quis dixerit, illis verbis, Hoc facite in meam commemorationem, Christum non 
instituisse Apostolos sacerdotes ; aut non ordinasse, ut ipsi aliique sacerdotes oflferrent corpus 
et sanguinem suuin : anathema sit."— Cone. Trid. Sess. 22. Can. 2. 

f "Dominus autem sacramentum pcenitentiae tunc praecipue instituit, cum a mortuis exci- 
latus, insufHavit in discipulos suos, dicens : Accipite Spiritum Sanctum ; quorum remiseritis 
peccata, remittuntur eis ; et quorum retinueritis, retenta sunt Quo tarn insigni facto, et 
verbis tarn perspicuis, potestatem remittendi et retinendi peccata, ad reconciliandos fidelcs 
post baptismum lapsos, Apostolis et eorum legitimis successoribus fuisse communicatani, 
uuiversorum patrum consensus semper intellexit."— Ibid. Sess. 14. c. 1. 

J "Si quis dixerit, per sacram ordinationem non dari Spiritum Sanctum, ac proinde frustra 
epificopos dicere, Accipe Spiritum Sanctum ; aut per earn non imprimi characterem : vei 
eum qui sacerdos semel fuit laicum rursus fieri posse: anathema sit."— Ibid. sess. 23. 
Can. 4. 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 365 

only are true bishops who are in communion with the bishop of 
Rome : whence it follows, that beyond the pale of the Roman 
obedience there is no covenanted grace, the appointed channels 
through which it is to flow nowhere else existing. However 
startling this inference may appear, the premises once granted, it 
follows necessarily from them, and, indeed, is openly avowed by 
the church of Rome, which, in this respect, presents a favourable 
contrast with those amongst ourselves, who, adopting substantially 
the same theory of transmitted sacerdotal grace, appear to hesitate 
in following it out to its legitimate consequences. Or is it con- 
tended that the notion of sacerdotal grace for the valid discharge 
of priestly functions is not a necessary element in the doctrine of 
the apostolical succession, as held by the advocates of church 
principles, and is separable therefrom? This will hardly be 
affirmed ; for in fact, apart from the secret virtue supposed to be 
conveyed by ordination, the doctrine in question loses all its real 
import, or, at any rate, contains nothing but what Protestants 
may and do equally hold. Every well instructed Romanist feels 
that to abandon the doctrine of the priestly character, official and 
psychological, which his church holds to be conveyed by the 
sacrament of orders, would be to divest the apostolical succession 
of that which, in his eyes, constitutes its real value. It would be 
well if they who are not Romanists, and yet lay so much stress 
upon this doctrine, would clear up to their own minds, and to the 
minds of others, what they really mean by it. Before inquiring 
what amount of truth may be contained in the above statements 
of the Romish formularies, it may be well to point out the con- 
nexion between the theory which they propound respecting the 
origin of ministerial functions, and the general view which 
Romanism takes of the nature and idea of the Church. 

Christianity, Jbelng the new law of Christ, must present the same 
general characteristics which its predecessor, the law of Moses, 
did. Now every legal system of religion being, as has been 
already observed, necessarily of an artificial and arbitrary charac- 
ter in its appointments, inasmuch as it is intended to work from 
without inwards, and to produce the dispositions which it does 
not find present, a law from without will regulate in detail all 
matters connected with divine worship, and especially will deter- 
mine the functions and persons of the sacerdotal order. The per- 
manency of the external mould in which the worshipper is to be 
fashioned to religion being a principal object in every such system, 
the institution of the priestly order will be positive rather than 









366 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

natural : it will come from without, not spring from within. 
Moral qualifications for the ministerial office — such as wisdom, or 
knowledge, or personal piety — will, under such a system, occupy 
a subordinate place, or, rather, may be altogether dispensed with : 
the great object being to make provision for a visible succession 
of sacerdotal persons, who, whatever they may be inwardly, shall 
at least possess an official sanctity. Besides, it is obvious that no 
one can guarantee the transmission of moral endowments, natural 
or spiritual. This object, the ancient systems of religion — the 
Jewish among the number — aimed at securing, and did, in fact, 
secure, by incorporating in themselves the principle of caste ; that 
is, by attaching the priestly function to a certain tribe or family, 
separated for that purpose from the rest of the nation, and making 
it pass from father to son in the way of natural descent, irrespec- 
tively of moral qualifications. By this means, the perpetual ex- 
istence of a visible priesthood was secured ; the only contingency, 
and that not a probable one, which could destroy the succession 
being the extinction of the sacerdotal tribe, or family. An heredi- 
tary priesthood, the basis of the sacerdotal character being, not 
the fitness of the individual, but the consecration of the caste, is 
the natural accompaniment of every system of religion which aims 
at moulding men, by means of law and discipline, into a specific 
type of religious sentiment. 

The Jewish priesthood was instituted on the principle just men- 
tioned. The tribe of Levi was set apart to the ministry of the 
tabernacle, and out of it the family of Aaron to sacerdotal func- 
tions; and nothing more was necessary to qualify men for the 
priesthood than legitimacy of birth, and investiture with the sacred 
garments. It is obvious that if any thing analogous to this was 
to reappear under the Christian dispensation, it must undergo con- 
siderable modifications to render it less strikingly inconsistent 
with the general principles of the Gospel : it must put on a more 
« spiritual form, and one capable of greater expansiveness. Par- 
ticularly in one point a change was indispensable : — a priesthood 
propagating itself by natural descent would manifestly be unfitted 
for the purposes of a religion, the professed aim of which is, not, 
like Judaism, to be a training school for one nation only, but to 
embrace the whole world within its pale. The transmission, there- 
fore, must be independent of race or tribe. It is, in fact, by thus 
modifying its aspect that Romanism is enabled to introduce the 
ministry of the law into the Gospel. The principle of caste is 
retained ; but it appears under a new form better suited to Chris- 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 367 

tianity. The powers which belong to the sacred office are trans- 
mitted only in one line, and in that line they are transmitted 
independently of any moral qualification on the part of the re- 
cipient : only, instead of priests by natural, we have priests by 
spiritual, descent, the existing body of bishops possessing the 
power, in and by the sacrament of orders, of spiritually genera- 
ting pastors for the Church. As of old, so now, the legitimacy of 
the ministerial commission depends exclusively upon the legiti- 
macy of the external succession, for the want of which no fulness 
of natural and spiritual endowment can compensate. Yet we are 
not to suppose that no internal grace accompanies the transmis- 
sion of orders ; that a priest becomes a priest solely by the visible 
imposition of hands. Some concession must, as regards this point, 
be made to the general spirit of Christianity, and therefore it is add- 
ed that by the sacrament of orders, working, like all the others, 
ex opere operato, grace is conferred ; not, however, sanctifying grace^ 
but the mystical grace of priesthood, grace for the valid perfor- 
mance of holy functions, which may exist equally in those who 
have saving faith in Christ and in those who have not. Thus a 
degree of inwardness is imparted to what otherwise would be as 
purely external a matter as the succession of Eleazer to Aaron. 
Finally, as the ancient priests were always priests, no one having 
it in his power to reverse his natural birth, so the spiritual stamp 
or impressed character, which is a consequence of ordination, for 
ever distinguishes him who receives it from his brethren in Christ. 
Thus do all the parts of the system hang together. The advocates 
of the Komish idea of the Church, whether belonging to the Church 
of Rome or amongst ourselves, are quite right in their supposition 
that between the general notion of the Church which they incul- 
cate, and their doctrine of the Christian ministry, an intimate con- 
nexion exists. If the Gospel be a republication of the law, and 
the Church primarily an external institute, from the idea of which 
the sanctifying work of the Spirit is separable, it is but natural to 
conclude that, as in other points so as regards the ministry, the 
divine scheme of the Jewish dispensation has "passed into some- 
thing higher and nobler, but higher and nobler of its own kind." * 
Wherever the Church is regarded as an institution for disciplining 
men into Christian dispositions, the ministry of the Church neces- 
sarily assumes the character of a positive appointment, founded 
upon an external law from which it derives its chief support and 
sanction. 

* Maurice's Kingdom of Christ, vol. ii. letter 6. 






368 



OIIUECH OF CHKISI. 









But to return : — it is not by any means to be supposed that the 
Protestant rejects indiscriminately the principles asserted in his 
opponent's theory ; on the contrary, in several of them he fully 
concurs. Thus, for example, no difference exists between the two 
parties respecting the necessity of an external vocation to the min- 
istry. The Protestant, equally with the Eomanist, holds that no 
man may take "this honour to himself;" that no pretension to inter- 
nal qualifications, however well founded, is of itself sufficient to 
authorize the public exercise of ministerial functions ; that, in the 
words of our article, " it is not lawful for any man to take upon 
himself the office of public preaching, or ministering the sacra- 
ments, in the congregation, before he be lawfully called and sent to 
execute the same." * Before the candidate for the ministry can 
legitimately enter upon his office, he must receive a commission to 
do so from "men who have public authority given unto them in 
the congregation to call and send ministers into the Lord's vine- 
yard." f It would be needless to insist upon what is obvious on 
the most cursory glance at the Protestant confessions, % were it not 
that, no doubt through inadvertence, the crude notions of certain 
sects on the subject of the ministerial vocation have been repre- 
sented as those of Protestants in general: and just as the latter 
have been charged with denying that the Church is in any sense 
visible because they do not hold it to be so in the Eomish sense, so 
they have been accused of doing away with the necessity of an 
external call to the ministry because they do not adopt the Eomish 
interpretation of that expression. It is a common device in argu- 
ment to represent an opponent as denying a proposition in every 
sense because he refuses to accept it in a particular one. 

Moreover, far from its being denied, it is strongly asserted by 
the Eeformed churches, that the ministerial office is intended to be 
perpetuated by succession: properly understood, the doctrine of 
the apostolical succession is not merely admissible, but Scriptural. 
In its legitimate acceptation, it enunciates the principle that to the 
existing body of Christian ministers in any Church it belongs, as 
their special prerogative, to examine into and authenticate the 
qualifications of those who are to succeed them, and to set them 
apart to their office by the imposition of hands. The delegated 
authority (t$ovaia) to exercise ministerial functions is to spring, 
not from below but, from above ; not from the Christian people in 



* Art. 23. 

t Conf. Hel. c. 18. Conf. Belg. s. 81. 
Conf. Aug. Art. 14. 



Conf. Bohem. Art. 9. 



t Ibid. 
Dec Thorun. De Ordin© 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION, 



469 



. general, bat from the clerical body, whatever its constitution may 
be.* The people may neither appoint nor remove their pastors 
without the concurrence of those from whom the latter are to 
receive, or have received, their investiture of office : the Christian 
ministry is not to be a creation of the popular will. That the popu- 
lar voice is to have a share in the appointment of ministers is true ; 
but it is not to trench upon the inalienable right of the clerical 
body, — self-perpetuation. 

This important principle, with which the maxims of modern sec- 
tarianism are as much at variance as they are with the Scriptural 
idea of a local church, is, if not expressly laid down in Scripture, 
at least to be inferred from apostolic example. The Apostles 
received their commissions from Christ, as He had received his 
from the Father. When it became necessary to create a new min- 
isterial office in the Church, the Apostles, while directing "the 
multitude " to select qualified persons to serve as deacons, reserved 
to themselves the prerogative of formally admitting those selected 
to their office. In like manner, when a still further addition was 
to be made to the original polity, it was the Apostles who "ordained 
elders in every church :" and if Timothy and Titus are to be regarded 
as prototypes of the episcopal office, St. Paul it was who placed them 
in this position at Ephesus and Crete. In short, there is no instance 
in the New Testament from which it can be inferred that the min- 
isterial commission is to take its rise from the Christian people; 
the contrary impression is conveyed by all the recorded cases. 
The apostolic epistles afford a strong confirmation of what we thus 
gather from the acts of the Apostles. In those of them which are 
addressed to churches, we find no allusion, however remote, to 
what, had it really been the province of the whole congregation, 
must have been one of its most important acts, — the appointment, 
or removal, of its pastors. When directions of this kind are given, 
it is not to churches, but to individuals, such as Timothy and Titus. 
It matters not by what particular designation we describe these 
ministers of Christ, whether we call them bishops, or evangelists, 
or apostolic delegates : it is sufficient that they were ministerial 
persons, and, for the time being at least, chief in authority in their 

• "Qui electi sunt ordinentur a senioribus cum orationibus publicis et imposition* 

manuum."-Conf. Hel. c 18. "Nee quenquam nisi ecclesiae et imprimis ejuj 

antistitum assensu subsequente, per electionem ecclesiae ad ministerium vocatum, et per 
ordinationem, seu manuum impositionem a presbyterio confirmatum ministerium in ecclesia 
exercere posse."— Declar. Thorun. De Ordine. Presbyterio competit examen, ordinatio, et 
inauguratio. Gerhard, loc. 24. c. iii. e. 4. Compare Calvin, Instit. L. 4. c iii. s. 15. 

24 






370 



CHURCH OP CHRIST. 






respective localities. To them it is, and not to the Christian peo- 
ple at large, that St. Paul gives authority to commit to faithful men 
the things which they had heard of him,* — to ordain elders, f to 
examine into the qualifications of candidates for the ministry, and 
to lay hands upon none but such as proved themselves fit for the 
office. The omission of any such directions in the epistles addressed 
to churches is the more remarkable when we consider how largely 
in those epistles St. Paul treats of the duties of a Christian society ; 
how unreservedly he discusses the most important questions of 
doctrine and practice, everywhere recognizing the competency of 
the Christian people to decide upon such points ; nay, how clearly, 
as will be shown hereafter, he teaches that the sovereignty of a 
Christian Church resides neither in the pastors nor in the people 
alone, but in the whole community. Only upon the right, or the 
duty, of the congregation to appoint its own pastors, he is silent. 
Once, indeed, he mentions the assumption of such a power, but in 
terms which by no means recommend it to our adoption ; speaking 
of it as a sign of the latter evil times that the people "will not 
endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall heap to 
themselves teachers, having itching ears." X 

That the ministerial function was, in this sense, to be trans- 
mitted by succession appears a plain inference from the recorded 
precedents of Scripture ; and it is equally evident how important 
a counterpoise is thereby afforded to the working of popular in- 
fluence, sure to make itself unduly felt wherever the Christian 
minister is looked upon as a creature of the congregation. They 
who regard it as their right to choose their own pastor, and to 
depose him, without the sanction of any portion of the order to 
which he belongs, will not be likely to permit him " to reprove, 
rebuke, and exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine ;" § nor to 
comply with the apostolic injunction, " obey them that have the 
rule over you, and submit yourselves." || It is one of the many 
evils connected with the independent theory of church polity that 
it precludes the possibility of adhering to Scriptural precedent as 
regards the point under discussion, — the transmission of the 
ministerial office. The erroneous supposition upon which that 
theory rests — viz. that a single congregation under its single 
pastor, and that only, is a Church in the Scriptural sense of the 
word — evidently excludes the very idea of a ministerial succes- 



* 2 Tim. ii. 2. 
X 2 Tim. iv. 3. 
11 Heb. xiii. 17. 



t Tit. i. 5. 
I 2 Tim. iv. 2. 



ORIGIN OP THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 371 

sion. The pastor dies, or is removed; upon which the people, 
without a pastor, proceed to elect a successor: but there is no 
existing body of clerical persons to transmit the commission. The 
defect is attempted to be remedied by calling in the pastors of 
neighbouring churches to assist in ordaining the new minister : 
but it is admitted that this is regarded in no other light than as an 
act of recognition and approval. According to the apostolic 
model, a church might, indeed, be so small as to consist but of a 
single congregation ; but, however small it was, it was never left 
under the guidance of a single pastor: it had its deacons, its 
college of presbyters, and, very soon, its bishop : so that vacancies 
in the clerical body were filled up under the sanction and presi- 
dency of the survivors, and the Church was never reduced to the 
state of a congregation without pastors. Individuals might depart, 
or be removed, but the clerical corporation never failed. 

Thus far there is Scriptural ground for the doctrine of a minis- 
terial, and, therefore, an apostolical, succession, the Apostles being, 
as all admit, the first link in the chain : and thus far, therefore, there 
is no controversy between Protestants and their opponents. The 
essential differences lie deeper: — they relate to the inner constitu- 
tion and origin of the New Testament ministry as contrasted with 
that of the Law ; on which point the theory propounded by the 
Romish formularies appears to be entirely at variance with the 
statements of Scripture. 

Eomanism, as we have seen, true to its general conception of 
the Church, considers the Christian ministry in the light of a posi- 
tive institution, delivered in a set form from without, and placed 
over, instead of emanating from, the Christian body : its con- 
nexion with the Church being not natural but positive, or a 
matter of law. Yery different is the light in which Scripture 
teaches us to regard it. In order to understand better the relation 
in which, according to Scripture, the ministry of the Church 
stands to the Church itself, we must recur for a moment to the 
primary idea of the latter, as expounded in a former part of this 
work. A Christian Church is, according to the idea, a congrega- 
tion of faithful or believing men, sanctified by the Spirit of God. 
Upon this general idea of the Church, as a community inwardly 
constituted by the Spirit, we must now engraft the further one, so 
vividly set forth in St. Paul's epistles — viz. that each Church, like 
the mystical body of Christ itself, is a living organization, or a 
whole composed of different parts with different functions, by the 
combination of which organic unity is effected. Such, at least, is 






372 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



i 









the scope of the well known passage in 1 Cor. xii., in which the 
Church — that is, the Christian society at Corinth — is compared 
to the human body, which, while one common principle of life 
pervades it, yet, is composed of many different members, each of 
which has a separate function necessary to the well-being of the 
whole. Even if we suppose the Apostle to have in view in that 
passage rather the whole of Christ's mystical body, of which each 
local church is a visible manifestation, than a single Christian so- 
ciety, we must yet remember that in every perfectly organized 
whole, the component members are themselves organic : the eye, 
for example, presents an instance of the same combination of differ- 
ent parts tending to one end, which, on a larger scale, the whole 
human body does. According to St. Paul, then, a Church is a liv- 
ing body, pervaded throughout by one principle of spiritual life 
which is common to all its members, but also exhibiting that va- 
riety of function which enters into the very idea of organic unity, 
and which distinguishes an organized body from a mere aggregate 
of similar atoms. Of this truth we have, perhaps, a recognition 
in the view which Ignatius takes of the bishop, as holding, as the 
visible centre of unity, the same place in respect to each visible 
church which Christ does to His mystical body; though, as is 
usual in the Church system, Ignatius confounds the outward 
manifestation of the thing with the thing itself. 

Now in a religious society of this kind, having its true differ- 
entia within, or in the presence of the Holy Spirit, whose ordinary 
influences are participated by all its members, it would be natural 
to expect that the diversities of function, or of office, which are 
necessary to its well-being, should follow the character of the so- 
ciety itself, and, instead of being imposed from without in the 
form of a literal prescription, should spring from within, and 
emanate directly from the same divine Spirit whose quickening 
influences pervade the whole mass. And so, in fact, it was di- 
vinely provided. When Christ went up on high, and sent down 
the Holy Ghost to dwell, in a peculiar sense, in His Church, He, 
at the same time, poured out upon the Christian society a rich 
abundance of spiritual gifts, — all manifestations of the same 
Spirit, and all intended to minister to the edification of the body 
of Christ. The outpouring of these gifts had been spoken of in 
prophecy as a characteristic of the Gospel times ; and the prophecy 
was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, when, simultaneously with 
the general effusion of the Spirit, one of the most remarkable of 
them was exhibited in exercise, — that of speaking in strange 






ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 373 

tongues, St. Paul, in various passages of his Epistles, expatiates 
upon the abundance of spiritual endowments with which the Apos- 
tolic Church was replenished, and points out the object for which 
they were bestowed. "There are diversities of gifts," he says, "but 
the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but 
the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is 
the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of 
the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is 
given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the word of 
knowledge by the same Spirit ; to another faith by the same Spirit ; 
to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit ; to another the 
working of miracles ; to another prophecy ; to another discerning 
of Spirits ; to another divers kinds of tongues ; to another the in- 
terpretation of tongues : but all these worketh that one and the 
self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For 
as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of 
that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ."* And 
again, " God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secon- 
darily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of 
healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues." f Thus one 
peculiarity of the Gospel, as contrasted with the law, is, that 
church offices presuppose spiritual endowments ; the office falling 
not, as of old, to the next casual successor, but to those qualified 
for it, and the qualification springing directly from Christ, present 
by His Spirit in the midst of His people. The warrant for exer- 
cising the office is, in the first instance, and before it is anything 
else, the possession of the gift of the Spirit, who in this matter 
refuses to be tied to any external prescription, and divideth " to 
every man severally as He will." 

It will be seen from the passages just cited that among the gifts 
poured out by Christ upon His church, those connected with the 
various functions of the ministry are classed. "Apostles," "pro- 
phets," "teachers," "helps," and "governments," all pertain to 
the ministerial office. Still more pointedly, but in the same sense, 
is the ministry referred to the direct agency of the Holy Spirit in 
the corresponding passage (Ephes. iv. 11, 12.) ; "He gave some, 
apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ; and some, 
pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints ; for the work 
of the ministry ; for the edifying of the body of Christ." And 
thus we arrive at the true interpretation of these passages, the 

* 1 Cor. xvi. 4- 12. f Ibid. ver. 28. 









874 



CHUKCH OF CHRIST, 









misunderstanding of which has given rise to erroneous theories. 
It is not unfrequentlj supposed that St. Paul here intends to 
enumerate the different orders of the ministry, whence the conclu- 
sion drawn has been that, in the apostolic age ; several ministerial 
offices existed, which afterwards fell into abeyance ; while others, 
feeling a difficulty in the supposition that any office emanating 
from Christ himself could have so suddenly ceased, have, in modern 
times, attempted to revive those mentioned by the Apostle ; — with 
what success is well known. But, in truth, in neither of the pas- 
sages is the allusion directly to ministerial offices," nor is it in this 
point of view that the ministry is referred to Christ's own institu- 
tion. What the Apostle is speaking of is, not offices, but gifts : as 
appears plainly from his classifying apostles, prophets, evangelists, 
&c, with the gifts of working miracles, of healing, and of speaking 
with tongues. The only apparent exception is the gift of " Apos- 
tles," for no doubt the apostolate was not a gift merely, but an 
office, and of divine institution ; and yet it is probable that St. 
Paul was here considering it rather in reference to the inward 
grace peculiar to it, for example, the grace of inspiration, than in 
its outward aspect, as a distinct office in the Church. Be this as 
it may, it is certain that none of the other designations — "pro- 
phets," "evangelists," "pastors and teachers" — are those of 
offices in the apostolic church, which possessed only three distinct 
ones connected with the ministry, — viz. apostles, presbyters or 
overseers, and deacons. This will be obvious if we consider that 
several of the functions mentioned by St. Paul might be united in 
one person : thus an Apostle might be, and indeed was, an " evan- 
gelist " also, and " a teacher : " the same individual might be " a 
prophet," a "pastor," and a governor: and all might possess the 
gifts of healing, or of miracles. These passages, therefore, estab- 
lish nothing respecting the ministerial offices of the apostolic age : 
what they do teach us is, that the spiritual endowments necessary 
for the office of an apostle, a pastor, a teacher, or a governor of 
the Church, whether these functions be united in the same person 
or not, flow directly from Christ, and are a part of the standing 
spiritual constitution of the Church.* \_ 

* Both Bilson and Hooker give the true sense of the passages in question. The former, 
commenting on 1 Cor. xii. 28., says, "To make us understand that we must not confound 
the functions in the Church with the gifts of the Spirit, much less mistake the one for tho 
other, let us number the gifts of tho Spirit that are noted in this one chapter, and see 

whether the public functions of the church can in any way be proportioned to them 

Here are nine gifts of the Holy Ghost numbered . ." . I trust there were not so many dis- 
tinct offices in the Church." And, again, on tho parallel passage, Rom. xii. 6., "He speaketh 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 375 

The word xagiofia is the generic term by which the manifold 
gifts of the Spirit, poured out upon the apostolic Church, are in 
the new Testament designated. It signifies either a natural 
endowment, sanctified by Christian faith, and applied, under the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit, to the edifying of the Christian 
body ; or an extraordinary spiritual gift, of a supernatural and 
miraculous character, in the exercise of which the divine agent 
was more conspicuous than the human. Thus, when St. Paul de- 
scribes, as gifts of the Spirit, " the word of wisdom," and "the word 
of knowledge," or " helps and governments," he must be supposed 
to mean natural faculties, in the one case of a speculative, in the 
other, of a practical cast, employed for the furtherance of Christ's 
kingdom; while such gifts as "faith," "healing," "the working 
of miracles," "prophecy," "discerning of spirits," "divers kinds 
of tongues," and "the interpretation of tongues," evidently belong 
to another class, a class in which the influence of the Spirit was 
seen operating more independently of the human agent, and in 
the way of immediate impulse. In the exercise of the gift of 
speaking with tongues, it was frequently the case that the rational 
understanding (vovg) was incapable of explaining intelligibly 
"the deep things of God," with which "the Spirit," the organ of 
divine intuition, was occupied ; * a state of mind resembling that 
which appears to have characterized the prophets when under the 
influence of inspiration. Another division of the charismata — 
or spiritual gifts of the New Testament — is into those which dis- 
played themselves in word, and those which had a more particular 
reference to action, or the conduct of affairs. To the former 
class belong " wisdom," or a deep apprehension of Christianity in 
its practical aspect, and " knowledge," or a theoretical insight into 
the nature and connexion of Christian doctrines, both which gifts 

indeed of divers gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, for so xap'V ara fofyopa doth import ; of 
divers offices he speaketh not."— Perpet. Govern, Ac. c. 10. pp. 193 & 198. Similarly 
Hooker: "I beseech them therefore, which have hitherto troubled the church with ques- 
tions about degrees and offices of ecclesiastical calling, because they principally ground 
themselves upon two places" (1 Cor. xii. 28. and Ephes. iv. 11.), "that, all partiality being 
laid aside, they would sincerely weigh and examine whether they have not misinterpreted 
both places, and all by surmising incompatible offices, when nothing is meant but sundry 
graces, gifts, and abilities, which Christ bestowed."— Eccles. Pol. lib. v. c. 78. s. 8. 

* 'Eiv yap irptacvx^nat yXaWr;, to irvcvpa fiov npocrivXcrat b 61 vovg pov a*apjr<5j ion.— 
1 Cor. xiv. 14. Perhaps, however, the words irvtvp.6. fiov shoald be taken as equivalent to 
irvevjjia Qcov iv cpoi, in which case the Apostle's meaning will be, In the ecstatic condition 
peculiar to the exercise of the gift of speaking, or praying, in a tongue, my understanding 
is passive, and it is the Spirit of God who dwells in me that Is really speaking through me 
as an instrument. 






876 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



found their sphere in the regular and stated office of teaching in 
the Church; " prophecy," or a sudden impulse of the Spirit, 
which enabled the subject of it to utter with extraordinary power 
words of warning or of exhortation, especially the former, inas- 
much as the gift was intended principally for the awakening of 
unbelievers (1 Cor. xiv. 25.) ; " speaking with tongues," or the 
uttering in a state of ecstatic rapture during which personal con- 
sciousness was comparatively in abeyance, of dark sayings, 
expressive of the spiritual realities with which the soul was 
occupied, which required an interpreter to make them intelligible 
to the bystanders (1 Cor. xiv. 27.) ; this gift itself of interpreta- 
tion (Ibid, ver.26.); and the critical faculty of pro ving, or judging, 
what was delivered in the congregation (didxQioig Ttvev^dzcov) See 
1 Cor. xiv. 29.) Under the latter head are to be placed the gift of 
"governments" (^v^BQvr^tig), which appears to have comprised a 
general aptitude for the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs, and for 
church-government ; " helps " (avnlrjxpetg), or practical skill in the 
duties peculiarly appropriated to the diaconate, — as the care of 
the sick, the distribution of alms, &c, — and the gifts of " heal- 
ing," and of working miracles. Several of these special gifts 
bear the same names as the ordinary graces of the Spirit common 
to all Christians ; as, for example, we read of a gift of " faith ;" 
but the two must be carefully distinguished. All Christians pos- 
sessed faith, wisdom, and knowledge ; but they did not all possess 
the gifts denoted by those terms. * 

The passage in the first epistle to the Corinthians (chapters 12, 
13, and 14), from which we derive our chief information respect- 
ing the spiritual gifts of the apostolic church, has already been 
referred to as illustrative of the distinctive character of Christian 
worship in that age, which we thence gather to have been homi- 
letic, and not sacrificial or typical : it is important, also, in another 



* In Neander's Geschichte der Pflanzung, &c. i. pp. 173 — 184, will be found a full and 
satisfactory discussion of the whole subject of the New Testament xap<o7*ara» See also 
Olshausen's Commentary on Acts, ii. 4.} 1 Cor. xii. 13, 14. That the gift of "speaking 
with tongues" means something separable from the power of speaking in different languages 
seems evident from the manner in which St. Paul speaks of it in Cor. xiv., especially his 
use of the singular number, as in v. 27. We may, with Olshauson, suppose that the gift, in 
its highest and most perfect form,— as it was given, for example, on tho day of Pentecost 
— included a power of speaking in different languages, but that otherwise it consisted in a 
sublime rapture, in which the individual uttered expressions resembling the Apostle's 
appnra pf^ara (2 Cor. xii. 4.), and which were unintelligible to the hearers without an 
interpreter. It is obvious that in an actually constituted church, like that of Corinth, the 
power of speaking various languages would be of comparatively little use as regardi 
edification. 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 377 

point of view, as helping to teach us what the Christian ministry, 
in its idea, is. When the church had " come together into one 
place," for the purpose of mutual edification, free scope was given 
to the exhibition of the various gifts of the Spirit in whomsoever 
they might be found. That a stated ministry of presbyters and 
deacons existed in the Corinthian church when St. Paul wrote admits 
of no doubt ; but it is remarkable how, throughout the whole of 
his discussion, the office, as compared with the gift, recedes into 
the back-ground. That the formal pastors of the Church had been 
selected for their office on the ground of their possessing, and 
proving that they possessed, the requisite spiritual gifts, we may 
with certainty conclude ; and therefore we may also conclude that 
they took a prominent part in the proceedings alluded to by St. 
Paul, the prophets, teachers, speakers in tongues, &c, being 
chiefly, if not exclusively, of their number : but it is remarkable 
that their right to stand forth in the Christian assembly and edify 
their brethren is made by the Apostle to rest, not so much upon 
their official position, as upon the fact that they were men spirit- 
ually gifted from above. Otherwise, none but they would have 
been permitted to speak; whereas it is clear from St. Paul's 
observations, that every one in the assembly who gave proof of 
his possessing a spiritual gift had liberty to exercise it, a liberty 
which the Apostle, far from restricting, evidently sanctions, with 
the one provision, that the law of order and decency should not 
be infringed, and the one limitation, that women should " keep 
silence in the churches." The whole scene, as described by the 
Apostle, conveys the liveliest impression of the freedom, the 
absence of formality, the natural living energy, which charac- 
terized the Apostolic church. Besides the stated instruction which 
we must presume to have always formed a part of the proceedings, 
speaking with tongues and prophesying were to have their place. 
St. Paul indeed gives the preference to the latter, as being more 
edifying to the assembly in general ; but the former under due 
control might be rendered profitable. Only when no possessor of 
the gift of interpretation was present, he who spake with tongues 
was to remain silent. The prophets were to "speak two or three; " 
while the hearers, in the exercise of the gift of spiritual dis- 
cernment, were to "judge" whether what was delivered were 
agreeable or not to the doctrine of Christ. If, while one was 
speaking, a divine impulse {ano*dh)\i)tg) were communicated to 
another, the first was to "hold his peace," or bring his discourse 
to a speedy conclusion. For "all" might "prophesy, one by 









378 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

one," that "all" might "learn," and "all" might "be comforted." 
(1 Cor. xiv. 27 — 31.). 

That the principle of formal transmission is not applicable to spir- 
itual gifts of this kind is evident from their very nature, as well as 
from the facts of Scripture. Natural endowments obviously follow 
no such law ; nor do we find that the extraordinary gifts of the 
Spirit did so. They were not committed, in the first instance, to a 
priestly caste, with a power to hand them down to their successors ; 
but they manifested themselves, independently of any such law of 
succession, here and there in the congregation ; and while, as has 
been already observed, the commission to exercise them sprang 
from the existing body of Christian ministers, — the Apostles first, 
and afterwards their successors in the ministry, — the gift itself, 
whatever it might be, proceeded directly from Christ ; and the more 
we ascend from the circumstantials to the essence of the ministerial 
office the more clearly does it appear that it is the Holy Ghost who, 
in the first instance, gives to the church overseers. We may here 
trace a correspondence between the perpetuation of the ministry 
and that of the church itself. Just as in adding members to His 
mystical body Christ makes use indeed of the visible church as 
an instrument, but has not committed to it the power of transmit- 
ting spiritual life, reserving to Himself the prerogative of quicken- 
ing souls, so in calling men to the ministry, He has given authority 
to the existing body of ministers to confer the external commission : 
but the inward endowment — that which is properly divine in the 
ministerial vocation — is His alone to give, and is given according 
to the good pleasure of His will. 

The only apparent exception to this rule which we find in the 
New Testament is the power which the Apostles appear to have 
possessed of conferring upon baptized believers, by the imposition 
of their hands, certain extraordinary gifts of the Spirit ; especially 
those of speaking with tongues, and prophecy. That the Apostles 
did possess such a power appears from several recorded instances. 
Thus when, through the preaching of Philip, many Samaritans em- 
# braced the Christian faith, and received baptism, the Apostles Peter 
and John were sent from Judea to perfect what was wanting in the 
new converts, and especially to communicate those visible and 
miraculous effects of the Spirit, which in that age commonly accom- 
panied His ordinary grace, and which, from some unexplained 
cause, had not followed the conversion of the Samaritans. The 
Apostles, accordingly, "when they were come down, prayed for 
them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost. Then laid they 






ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 379 

their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost." * In 
like manner, it was not until St. Paul had laid his hands upon the 
baptized disciples at Ephesus that " the Holy Ghost came on them, 
and they spake with tongues and -prophesied." f 

A closer examination, however, of this exceptional case proves 
that it is not really so. In the first place, on two remarkable occa- 
sions, the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and the 
conversion of Cornelius, the miraculous gifts of the Spirit were 
conferred immediately from heaven, and without the intervention 
of any human instrument. That this was a departure from the 
ordinary rule, intended to mark the importance of the events thus 
distinguished, the one being the formal establishment of Christ's 
Church upon earth, the latter the first admission of the Gentile 
converts into it, is no doubt true ; still, the circumstance proves 
that no exclusive connexion was established between the Apostolic 
imposition of hands and the gifts of the Spirit ; the Divine Agent 
having occasionally acted in this matter as He does in dispensing 
His ordinary grace, irrespectively of any law cognizable by human 
understanding : — " The wind bloweth where it listeth," &c. Second- 
ly, though we gather from Scripture that to the Apostles this pre- 
rogative belonged, it does not appear that any but they possessed 
it, or that they themselves had the power of transmitting it to 
others. The very passages which prove that the Apostles possessed 
the power seem also to prove that to none but them was it com- 
mitted. That Philip, for instance, was abundantly endowed with 
the gifts of the Spirit, is evident from the striking miracles which 
he performed among the Samaritans ; and yet we may gather from 
the narrative alluded to that he could not, by the imposition of his 
hands, communicate them to others, for the Apostles Peter and 
John appear to have been sent for the very purpose of supplying, 
in this particular point, what he had left unfinished. So, through- 
out the New Testament, it is Apostles, and Apostles only, that are 
mentioned as having power to impart the extraordinary gifts of 
the Spirit; a privilege which, doubtless, belonged to them as 
inspired persons, "filled with the Holy Ghost" in a sense in which 
no other believers could be said to be so. That St. Paul considered 
this power to be a distinctive privilege of his order appears from 
the use he makes of it in 2 Cor. xii. 12., to refute his adversaries, 
who insinuated that he did not rank, as an Apostle, with those who 
had seen Christ in the flesh : for that by " the signs of an Apostle " 

* Acts, viii. 14-17. t Ibid. xix. 6. 






380 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 






he means more especially the power of imparting the gifts of the 
Spirit is altogether probable, the mere working of miracles not 
being by any means an exclusively Apostolical prerogative. On 
the whole, the conclusion to which Scripture leads us on this diffi- 
cult and obscure point is, that while the Apostles could, by the 
imposition of their hands, communicate to others certain spiritual 
gifts — for such gifts as "wisdom," "knowledge," and a faculty for 
"governing," we never read of their imparting, — they could not 
transmit to others a similar power ; whence we may conclude that 
the prerogative ceased with these its first possessors, and that, 
although there is every reason to believe that extraordinary gifts 
continued for a time after the Apostolic age to manifest themselves 
in the Church, they were not imparted, as they had been by the 
Apostles, by the imposition of hands.* To the foregoing consid- 
erations we may add, in the third place, that the gifts of the Spirit 
appear to have been bestowed indiscriminately upon all baptized 
believers ; there being no ground for the supposition of Bilson and 
others that the privilege was confined to those whom the Apostles 
desired, by the impartation of special endowments, to qualify for 
the office of the ministry. So far from this being the case, it seems 
to have been the practice of the Apostles to lay hands upon all 
those who had been recently baptized ; and wherever the recipients 
of the rite were worthy, "the Holy Ghost fell upon them," and the 
gift of tongues, or prophecy, followed as a matter of course. It is, 
indeed, reasonable to suppose, that from among persons thus gifted 
the formal ministry was chosen ; but, though the supposition is 
not itself improbable, there is no satisfactory evidence that the 
Apostles in imparting the gifts had that special object in view. In 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, the doctrine of the imposition of hands 
is mentioned as one of the elementary principles of the Gospel. 

But whether it be the fact or not that others besides the Apostles 
possessed the power of imparting the extraordinary gifts of the 
Spirit, and that such powers were actually handed down by their 



* Hence the groundlessness of the assumption that our rite of confirmation is identical with 
the apostolic imposition of hands. There is hardly any thing hetween them in common, 
gave the outward sign. The Apostles, as Apostles, had no successors ; and the signs which 
accompanied the apostolic rite, and which constituted its specific difference, have long 
ceased ; there only remains the imposition of hands which they practised, and we practise 
now. The fact is, that the ceremony was continued in the church, as a salutary and scrip- 
tural one, when the effects that once followed it were withdrawn; and as a useful and 
scriptural custom of the church it can only now be regarded. In another point of view, 
however,— viz. as the supplement of infant baptism,— confirmation, or some equivalent 
ceremony, seems necessary in every church which practises infant baptism. 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 381 

possessors to others, and continued to manifest themselves in the 
church for some time after the Apostolic age, is to the present ar- 
gument comparatively immaterial. Even if we suppose that the 
Apostles frequently, if not exclusively, exercised the power in- 
herent in them in order to qualify persons for the ministry, and 
that such ministerial persons as had themselves received extraor- 
dinary gifts from an Apostle — a Timothy, for example — could 
transmit them to his successors as long as such gifts existed in the 
church ; the question still remains, of what nature were the gifts 
so transmitted ? This is one of the essential points to be con- 
sidered. Without a single exception the ministerial gifts men- 
tioned in Scripture, whether given directly from Christ, or medi- 
ately through the Apostles, were of a moral or an intellectual 
nature ; — that is, they were intended to qualify men, either for 
the ministry of the "Word or for the government of the Church. 
The gifts of "wisdom," of "knowledge," of "faith," of "pro- 
phecy," of "discerning of spirits," of "tongues," of "the inter- 
pretation of tongues ; " or those described as " helps, and govern- 
ments ; " to what department of the religious life do they belong ? 
Obviously, not to the sacramental and mystical (save in so far as 
the ministry of the Word is itself of a sacramental character), but 
to the moral, to the class of divine influences which operate upon 
the heart through the medium of the understanding. No such 
gift as a mystical grace of priesthood, a gift to render the adminis- 
tration of Gospel ordinances — e.g. the Sacraments — valid, and 
which, from its nature, must exist independently of the moral or 
intellectual qualifications of the possessor, is recorded to have been 
communicated to believers by the Apostles. It will be shewn in 
a subsequent section that no such gift was needed in the Church, 
inasmuch as no law, confining the administration of Baptism and 
the Lord's Supper to a priestly caste, represented in the Apostles, 
is found to have emanated either from Christ or the inspired 
Twelve ; what we have now to observe is, that a spiritual gift of 
this mystical nature finds no place in the enumeration of the mani- 
fold manifestations of the Spirit which distinguished the Apostolic 
age ; all of which, as has been observed, were moral in their na- 
ture, and found their sphere of exercise in the work either of 
teaching or of governing. Consequently, if it be so, that 2 Tim. i. 
6. refers to Timothy's ordination by St. Paul, and not to the be- 
stowing upon him of extraordinary gifts irrespectively of his 
ministerial vocation, we are still quite sure that the gift imparted 
to him by the Apostle, and which he was commanded to "stir 






382 



CHUECH OF CHRIST, 






up," was not a spiritual power of " consecrating and offering the 
body and blood of Christ," or of remitting and retaining sins, but 
a moral gift of whatever kind, a gift which could be " stirred up," 
or made more active in its exercise, by reading, meditation, and 
prayer ; a property which we know does not belong to the mysti- 
cal grace of priesthood, the latter being incapable of increase or 
diminution by any moral efforts on the part of its possessor. 
And we are equally sure that when extraordinary gifts were with- 
drawn from the church, that which succeeded to them was of a 
moral, and not of a mystical, nature; — that is, that their place 
was occupied by natural or acquired endowments of mind or body, 
sanctified to the uses of the Church : and that when the prayer that 
the candidate for the office of a Presbyter or a Bishop may " re- 
ceive the Holy Ghost " for the due performance thereof is granted, 
what is vouchsafed is, not a priestly virtue apart from which the 
sacraments have no validity, but increase of enlightening and 
sanctifying grace, grace to apply natural endowments to the edif} T - 
ing of Christ's body; — "the spirit of power, and of love, and of 
a sound mind ; " a gift of the same nature with that which Timo- 
thy and others received by the imposition of St. Paul's hands. 

From these remarks the points in which the Eomish theory of 
the origin and perpetuation of the ministry diverges from the view 
presented in Scripture will be evident. Instead of the ministry 
being, in the first instance, a positive institution, coming to the 
Church from without, and, as it were, placed over it, it is a func- 
tion of the Church itself, springs up from within the sacred en- 
closure, and, in its primary form, or before it is anything else, is 
a spiritual power flowing directly from Christ. The ministry does 
not, as Kome teaches, sustain the Church, but the Church sustains 
the ministry. The Church is supposed to be in existence, as a 
congregation of believers, sanctified by the Spirit of God : within 
the Church Christ, its divine Head, raises up, by the outpouring 
of spiritual gifts, its natural ministry, which then passes into a 
formal one; raises up, that is, men divinely qualified to teach, 
exhort, govern, and in other ways edify their brethren. Whether 
these men as yet bear formal offices in the Church or not is com- 
paratively immaterial; the possession of the gift is their true 
warrant for exercising it. The formal ministry, which was itself 
natural before it was formal, must not suppress the existing natural 
one : — " quench not the Spirit, despise not prophesyings." The 
single exception to this divinely appointed order, that of the 
Apostles themselves, who, no doubt, were given to the Church 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 383 

from without, is an additional proof, if any were needed, that their 
office was but a temporary one, instituted for the purpose of or- 
ganizing the visible Church, but not intended to form a permanent 
part of its organization : it would not have been suitable that an 
order of ministers, whose special office it was to mould the polity 
of the Church into its appointed shape, should spring from the 
bosom of the Church itself. The Apostolate, therefore, and it 
alone of the ecclesiastical offices mentioned in the New Testament, 
was instituted before the Church came into existence, and stood 
related to the Church as an external authority. Moreover, they 
whom Christ thus endows with gifts for the ministry are supposed 
to be partakers of the common life of the Church ; and extraor- 
dinary spiritual endowments always appear grafted upon the stock 
of a living faith. For divine wisdom, knowledge, or illumination 
are possessed only by the sanctified in heart, and the teachers of 
the Church must be themselves taught of God. " Apostles pro- 
phets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers " are members, as well as 
ministers, of the body of Christ : they are of the Church before 
they become its instructors and rulers. Hence, as might be ex- 
pected, no such notion is found in the New Testament as that of 
grace to qualify for sacerdotal functions, distinct from, and inde- 
pendent of, the grace common to all Christians ; or that the divine 
vocation to the ministry is a thing morally indifferent, possessed, 
if only the legitimate outward call be present, equally by the evil 
and the good. The inward call of the Spirit to the ministry pre- 
supposes sanctincation by the same Spirit. Nor does this militate 
against the doctrine, asserted by the Reformers as well as by their 
opponents, that the unworthiness of the minister does not hinder 
the effect of his ministrations, whether in the Word or the Sacra- 
ments ; for the question relates not to the external commission, 
but to the inward endowment. The Church, having by the exer- 
cise of discipline deposed from their ministry those whose lives 
_are openly vicious, has done what in her lies towards making the 
natural and the positive ministry one and the same; but the 
entrance of carnally minded persons, or even secret unbelievers, 
into the sacred office cannot altogether be prevented, any more than 
their entrance into the Church itself. Such pastors are not indeed 
sent by Christ ; nor have we any more reason to believe that the 
imposition of hands has a spiritual effect upon them than we have 
to suppose that baptism impresses a spiritual character upon an 
adult hypocrite : nevertheless, as long as the external commission 
remains unrevoked, the means of grace may be efficacious in their 






384 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



hands, for their efficacy depends not upon the moral condition of 
the administrator, but upon the faith of the receiver. The Word 
and the Sacraments of Christ, as Augustin against the Donatists 
well argues, are still His Word and his Sacraments to whose 
custody soever they may be committed. 

From the foregoing remarks it may be gathered that the 
significancy of the rite by which the Apostles were accustomed 
to set apart persons to the office of the ministry, and which has 
since been continued in the Church for that purpose, assumes in 
the eyes of the Protestant an aspect different from that which it 
bears in the Eomish system. While the Eomanist attaches a 
sacramental character to this rite, — that is, regards it as the 
special means through which the grace of ordination is conveyed 
to the ordained, — the Protestant formularies consider it rather as 
a recognition of the existence of ministerial gifts and the convey- 
ance of authority to make them available to the edifying of the 
Church. Hooker rightly remarks : — " Out of men thus endued 
with the gifts of the Spirit upon their conversion to the Chris- 
tian faith the Church had her ministers chosen, unto whom was 
given ecclesiastical power by ordination : " * the " ecclesiastical 
power," or commission, not a specific grace, being the effect of the 
imposition of hands. Those whom the Apostles endowed, or 
found to be endowed, with gifts for the work of the ministry 
they laid hands upon, transferring a familiar Jewish rite to this 
among other Christian purposes, but not as a sacramental channel 
of grace, not as being specially appropriated to this particular 
use. In truth, we find, in the New Testament, no specific rite of 
ordination, no ceremony, that is, specially appointed for the con- 
secration of Christian priests, analogous to that by which the 
Jewish priests were admitted to their office : for not only was the 
imposition of hands used on a variety of occasions besides that 
of setting apart ministers, — such as communicating the extra- 
ordinary gifts of the Spirit, or the miraculous healing of the sick, 
— but even in the case of ministers it was, not unfrequently, more 
than once administered to the same individual. Thus when Saul 
and Barnabas, who had been long engaged in preaching the 
Gospel, had a new and special field of labour assigned them by 
the Spirit, the " prophets and teachers" at Antioch laid their 
hands upon them with fasting and prayer, and so sent them forth 
to their destination, f In like manner Timothy appears to have 



• E. P. Book 5. c. 78. s. 9. 



t Aota, xiii. 1-3. 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 385 

had hands laid upon him on two several occasions, * once by the 
presbyters, and a second time by St. Paul alone; though it is 
possible that the Apostle's imposition of hands had reference 
only to the imparting of spiritual gifts. But, according to the 
rule of the Church, ordination can never be repeated. Had the 
Church been a religious society founded on the same principle 
as that which pervaded the Jewish system, we cannot doubt that 
a special ceremony, and a ritual of consecration, would have been 
appointed for the inauguration of Christian ministers: that no 
such ceremony, or ritual, is to be found in apostolic Christianity 
is an additional proof, if such were needed, of the essential differ- 
ence between the earlier and the later dispensation. " The Holy 
Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where- 
unto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, 
and laid their hands on them, they sent them away :" — it was the 
Holy Ghost who intimatedr whom he would have sent forth; it 
was the Church that delivered to the persons selected their com- 
mission. The declared will of the Holy Ghost did not render the 
intervention of the Church, represented in her "teachers and 
prophets," unnecessary : if Paul and Barnabas were to go to the 
Gentiles, they must receive from the Church a commission to do 
so : but the inward call, or, in other words, the spiritual endow- 
ment, came directly from above. To authenticate the divine call, 
to carry into effect the divine intention, was the province of the 
Church, f j, \ 

T 

* 1 Tim. iv. 14. 5 2 Tim. i. 6. The suggestion of some ancient writers that the word 
rptcPvrtpiov in the first of these passages may signify "the office of an elder" by which 
the passage is made to mean that Timothy was ordained to be a presbyter, has been aban- 
doned by most recent commentators of any note. The word never occurs in that sense in 
the New Testament ; nor was the office which Timothy held that of an elder, in the strict 
sense of the word. Much obscurity, however, hangs over the nature of the transaction* 
alluded to by St. Paul,— i. e. whether the imposition of hands alluded to relates to the setting 
apart Timothy to the ministry, or to the imparting to him of spiritual gifts : but the former 
supposition seems to be the more probable. 

t The appropriation of the word " ordination," and its derivatives, to signify the act of 
setting persons apart to the ministry, has had the effect of causing us to forget the 
secularity of its origin. So far from its involving, in its original meaning, any idea of a 
eacred or sacramental character, it is. of all ecclesiastical terms, the most purely secular in 
derivation. The word ordo, from which the Latin verb ordinare is derived, was tho tech- 
nical term for the senate or council, to which, in the colonies and municipal towns of the 
Roman empire, the administration of local affairs was committed, and the members of 
which were called Decuriones. The correlative, therefore, to the ordo was not the laity as 
distinguished from the priesthood, but the plebs, or private citizens, as distinguished 
from the magistracy. And, in fact, the word ordinare is never used by the classical 
writers to signify consecration to a sacred office. From the state it passed into the 
ahurch, whence the frequent use, in the early Latin fathers, of the word plebs to denote 

25 






386 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 









If the imposition of hands for the work of the ministry, as the 
rite meets us in Scripture, was but a recognition of the gifts which 
Christ had given, and a commission to exercise them, we should 
expect to find that it would be a matter of comparative indiffer- 
ence, except as a question of order, by whom the act was per- 
formed. And so, in fact, it is. No law respecting the minister of 
ordination can be found in the inspired record. Wherever Apos- 
tles were present, they naturally discharged this, the most import- 
ant of all duties connected with the government of the Church : 
who so qualified to make choice of persons for the office of the 
ministry as they who possessed, in its highest form, the gift of 
spiritual discernment ? Especially would this rule be observed in 
the first founding of a church, when the immaturity of Christian 
knowledge and experience on the part of the recent converts 
would obviously render it inexpedient that they should be en- 
trusted with the selection of their own pastors, and, perhaps, even 
compel the Apostles present to lay hands, as Bilson suggests, upon 
certain individuals for the express purpose of qualifying them, bv 
the imparting of spiritual gifts, for the exercise of the ministerial 
function. It would have been, for example, unnatural if, when St. 
Paul and St. Barnabas visited the churches of Asia which they 
had just founded (Acts, xiv. 21.), any other person but these 
Apostles had " ordained elders in every church ; " or if in the im- 
perfectly constituted churches of Ephesus and Crete, the Apostle 
being absent, his delegates and representatives had not been com- 
missioned to do what, had he been there, he would have himself 
done. And in no part of Scripture is the rule laid down that to a 
legitimate ordination the presence of the Apostles or of their dele- 
gates was necessary ; no intimation is given that a mystical virtue 
resided in the inspired founders of the Church, which they only 
were capable of transmitting, and without the transmitted posses- 
sion of which no one was entitled to preach the Word or adminis- 
ter the sacraments. Where the Apostles were present, they, for 
the reasons above given, commonly ordained ; where there were 
no Apostles, others might perform this office, provided only they 



the Christian people, or the laity, in contrast with the clergy. It is reasonable to suppose 
that, when first introduced, its ecclesiastical corresponded to its civil meaning; and that 
to be " ordained," or to be invested with " holy orders," signified merely to be chosen a 
member of the governing body or presbytery in a Christian society ; no reference being 
intended to a specific grade of religious standing supposed to be thereby acquired. To 
transfer the notions which in later times became connected with "ordination" into the 
apostolic age, or the sacred narrative, ie the ready way to fall into serious errors of sorip- 
tural interpretation. 



|J 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 387 

• 

did so in an apostolical spirit. A Timothy, and a Titus, might 
during St. Paul's lifetime ordain elders with no prejudice to the 
validity of the ordinance ; and if the transaction referred to in 
1 Tim. iv. 14., relates to Timothy's ordination, * it seems to follow 
from it that the presbytery might, at the suggestion of "pro- 
phecy," — i.e. by a special divine intimation, — send him forth 
into the vineyard. Or shall we say with some ancient commen- 
tators, who could cut the knot in no other way, that they who laid 
hands on Timothy were not presbyters, bat bishops ? f Even 
Apostles, like Paul and Barnabas, might be separated to their 
special mission by certain persons at Antioch concerning whom 
we cannot pronounce with certainty that they were of the positive 
ministry at all, still less of the highest order of it. In this, as in 
other matters of ritual and polity, the Church was left compara- 
tively unfettered : the essential point was to pitch upon those who, 
in the words of Chrysostom, had been, previously to their formal 
ordination, ordained by the Spirit, J to whom it really appertains 
to qualify and send forth labourers into the vineyard. 

And yet, to the candid inquirer, the circumstance will not be 
without weight, that, with the exception of Timothy's case above 
mentioned, no instance of presbyters ordaining occurs in Scrip- 
ture ; none certainly of an authority to ordain having been com- 
mitted to them by the Apostles, as it was to Timothy and Titus. 
If the Apostles are not found claiming the power of ordination as 
the differentia of their office, it yet remains a fact, that to indi- 
i 

* This passage is not unfrequently combined with that in the second epistle, so as to 
make it appear that St. Paul laid hands on Timothy, the presbytery concurring with him 
in the act; but it is more natural to suppose that the Apostle alludes to different transac- 
tions which took place at different times. The argument founded on the difference of 
meaning of the prepositions pcra and <5»a appears hardly conclusive. It is true that the idea 
of concurrence is most strongly expressed in pera than in 6ta, but the context itself, without 
calling in any other passage, explains the use of the proposition. A spiritual gift (of what- 
ever kind) has been imparted to Timothy pura cmdiacws wv xttpwv Ac. — simultaneously 
with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery; the concurrence being between the gift 
and the imposition of hands.— See Winer's Grammatik, s. 51. p. 360. One general remark 
may be made upon the whole subject,- viz. that were it essential to the validity of ordina- 
tions that hands should be imposed by certain persons, or a certain order in the Church, 
the Scriptural evidence to that effect would never have been left so scanty and ambiguous 
as it has been. 

t Ou rrepi nptaf} vrcpwv faviv ivravOa, d\\h ircpl imaK6nuv ov yap ih n pea 0v repot rdv inienconov 
ixeipOT6»ow.—Chrysost. in loc. An instance of a mode of Scriptural interpretation very com- 
mon with divines. Because in hit time, presbyters could not, by the rule of the Church, 
ordain, Chrysostom argues that so it must have been in the first age of the Church. 

X ' Opa na\it> lir6 rvtw XttpOTOvctraf vni Aoim'ou tov Kvpivaiov xai MavaV paWov 61 ix& ni 
UvtviiaTOf.— Chrysost. in Act Horn. 27. 



388 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



viduals, placed pro tempore in a position of ecclesiastical authority, 
and to such only, they delegated that power ; and whatever con- 
clusions may be fairly drawn from the fact, let them be drawn. 
The conclusion which probably will be drawn by the cautious 
student of Scripture is, that episcopal ordination, like episcopacy 
itself, is agreeable to the mind of St. Paul ; and here he will stop. 
Should there, for example, from unavoidable or accidental circum- 
stances, exist in any given church no order of ministers higher 
than presbyters, he will not venture to affirm that ordinations by 
such presbyters are invalid, or fail to convey the grace necessary 
for the discharge of the ministerial office ; for this is precisely the 
point where the guiding light of Scripture fails us. The apostolic 
precedent and example it furnishes, but not the theory, not the 
doctrine. Why the Apostles or their delegates only ordained; 
whether on account of the existing circumstances of the Church, 

— such as the paucity of persons qualified to discharge so import- 
ant a function, — or in obedience to the natural law of order, or, 
as the Church system would have it, because they alone possessed 
the power of transmitting the mystical grace of priesthood ; upon 
this, the essential point in the discussion, Scripture throws no 
light. The Apostles have not supplied the grounds — the rationale 

— of their own mode of proceeding. And be it observed, to sup- 
ply it for them, to append a dogmatical theory to what is simply 
a recorded fact, is to make a serious and unauthorized addition to 
the written record. When episcopacy was introduced, to bishops, 
as being so far successors of the Apostles as that they were the, 
highest order of ministers in the Church, the power of ordination 
was, agreeably to apostolic precedent, reserved ; a reservation 
which was ratified by ancient canons, and has received the sanc- 
tion of immemorial usage. On this solid ground it is best to rest 
the practice of episcopal ordination. That bishops rightly ordain, 
we can say with certainty; to say that none but they can ordain, 
is, not only to add something of our own to the written Word, but 
to set aside the evidence of history, which testifies to the contrary,* 



* The most remarkable instance in which a deviation from the rule that bishops only 
should ordain appears to have taken place in the well known one of the Alexandrian Church, 
in which, as Jerome reports, it was the custom for the presbyters " to choose one out of their 
own number, and, placing him in a higher position, to salute him bishop ; as if an army 
should make an emperor, or the deacons should elect one of themselves and call him arch- 
deacon." (Epist. ad Evang.) To the same effect is the testimony of Hilary the deacon, and 
of Eutychius of Alexandria. To the evidence of the former writer, Mr. Palmer (on the 
Church, part 6. c. 4.) objects that the word "consignant" which he (Hilary) uses signifies 
not "ordain," but " confirm," and to that of the latter, that he lived too late (in the tenth 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 389 

and to abandon the moderate position taken np on this snbject by 
our most learned divines. * 

The conclusions to which the inspired testimony leads us on the 
subject under discussion may be briefly summed up thus : the 
ministry of the Church, in all that appertains to its essence, 
is the direct gift of Christ, to whom alone it properly belongs to 
perpetuate the succession of pastors : and in its primary state, or 
as it comes from Christ, it is not an external institution, but a 
spiritual power emanating from the bosom of the Church itself ; 
it roots in the Church, and has no existence independently thereof. 
Along with the general outpouring of the Spirit on the day of 
Pentecost, or rather as a constituent part of it, the ministerial 
gifts were given : they formed an element innate and natural of 
the spiritual constitution of the Christian body : they existed, and 
were exercised, before any positive institution of ministerial offices 
took place. To assume a fixed outward form, and become identi- 
fied with a separate order of men, is a secondary, though necessary, 
process. Thus between the idea of the Church and that of its 
ministry, a perfect correspondence exists : the latter is homoge- 
neous with the former. As a church is first a congregation of 
sanctified believers, and then an organized society, so the ministry 

century) to have any weight in determining such a question. But however indecisive the 
expressions, or the opinions, of each writer separately may be, the presumption in favour of 
the obvious meaning of Jerome's language created by their united testimony is very strong, 
especially as it is confirmed by a passage which occurs in the book printed with Augus tin's 
works, Quaestiones de utroque Testamento : — "Nam in Alexandria et per to tarn JSgyptum, 
si desit episcopus, consecrat presbyter." Quaest CI. By the Benedictine editors this work 
is pronounced spurious : but the author is supposed to have lived not later than the close 
of the fourth century. 

• "Hence it followeth that many things which in some cases presbyters may lawfully 
doe, are peculiarly reserved unto bishops, as Hierome noteth,— "Potius ad honorem sacer- 
dotii quam ad legis necessitatem,"— rather for the honour of their ministry than the neces- 
sity of any law. And therefore we read that presbyters in some places, and at some times, 
did impose hands, and confirm such as were baptized: which when Gregory bishop of Rome 
would wholly have forbidden, there was soe great exception taken to him for it, that he left 
it free againe. And who knoweth not that all presbyters in cases of necessity may absolve 
and reconcile penitents: a thing in ordinary course appropriated unto bishops? And why 

not by the same reason ordaine presbyters and deacons in cases of like necessity? 

For if the power of order and authority to intermeddle in things pertaining to God's ser- 
vice be the same in all presbyters, and that they be limited in the execution of it only for 
order's sake, so that in case of necessity every of them may baptize and confirme those whom 
they have baptized, absolve and reconcile penitents, and doe all those other acts which regu- 
larly are appropriated unto the bishops alone; there is no reason to be given, but that in 
case of necessity, wherein all bishops were extinguished by death, or being fallen into heresie 
should refuse to ordaine any to serve God in his true worship; but that presbyters, as they 
may do all other acts, whatsoever special challenge bishops in ordinary course make unto 
them, might do this also."— Field, Of the Church, book iii. c. 39. Compare Hooker, E. P. 
lib. vii. c. 14. 11. 






390 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



is ; in the first instance, a spiritual power, and then an office trans- 
mitted in a visible line of succession. In short, the natural minis- 
try is prior, in order of time, to the positive, and constitutes the 
true basis thereof. Romanism reverses the order, and makes 
the ministry positive before it is natural. By the expression na- 
tural ministry is meant simply that wherever there is a church 
of Christ, there will be found in it, not as a superadded endow- 
ment, but as an inherent property, Christians spiritually qualified 
to edify their brethren ; and who, whether they ever form part of 
the positive ordo or not, constitute the true clerisy of the Church. 
This is the only true sense in which the Christian ministry can be 
said to be of divine institution ; and in this sense it is so. 

On the other hand, the positive ministry, or visible line of suc- 
cession, is the ministry in its human, its ecclesiastical, aspect ; the 
ministry, not as it comes from Christ, but as it is constituted me- 
diately by the Church. Hence the positive is ever but an inade- 
quate representation of the true ministry : it partakes of the 
imperfection which belongs to the Church itself in its visible aspect. 
For though the general assistance of the Spirit is promised to the 
elders, or bishop, in the work of "trying the spirits," or pronounc- 
ing upon the fitness of those who desire the office of a bishop, so 
that we may believe that the true and the positive ministry will, 
to a great extent, be coincident, yet, since infallibility in the exer- 
cise of this function is not secured, mistakes will from time to 
time occur ; some whom Christ has not called will gain admission 
to the sacred office, and others, to whom He has given the neces- 
sary spiritual endowments, will be excluded therefrom. The case 
will be here exactly the same as with the Church itself: as the vi- 
sible church, though it ought to be identical with the true, is 
never actually so in fact, so the positive succession is never actu- 
ally identical with the true ministry. The approximation, how- 
ever, to identity between the two may be continually progressive, 
and does, in fact, become closer in proportion as by persecution 
from without, and the energy of discipline within, the visible 
church becomes more and more one with the mystical body of 
Christ; the ministry approaching its ideal pari passu with the 
Church itself 

But what if, the age of miraculous gifts having long since 
ceased, having, in fact, ceased with the Apostles, or soon after the 
apostolic age, the state of things depicted in St. Paul's epistles can 
furnish no precedents for a later time ? The objection is an ob- 
vious, but at the same time only an apparent, one, However 






ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 391 

different the circumstances of the Church may be in different ages, 
the great principles of the new dispensation, as laid down in Scrip- 
ture, are immutable, or, at least, are intended to apply to the end 
of time. It is true that the abundant manifestations of the Spirit, 
which distinguished the infancy of the Church, were not meant to 
be perpetual : they were bestowed for a temporary purpose, and 
ceased as soon as the Church no longer needed them to sustain her 
own faith, or to make an impression upon the torpid mind of 
heathenism. In due time, ordinary endowments, moral and in- 
tellectual, which, when sanctified by the Spirit, had from the first 
found a sphere of exercise in the Church, were entirely to super- 
sede the supernatural gifts which accompanied the Pentecostal 
effusion : " prophecy " and " speaking with tongues " were to give 
way to the stated teaching of official persons, and " wisdom " and 
* knowledge " were to be the result, not of the direct agency of 
the Spirit, but of study and reflection. Schools and universities, 
the study of languages and philosophy ; mental and moral training, 
and the aptitude for business which is the result of experience ; 
by these means that fitness for the ministry was to be acquired 
which at first was the direct gift of God. The transition from the 
period of immediate spiritual influence, to the normal state into 
which the Church was to settle, is distinctly marked in St. Paul's 
pastoral epistles. In these, the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit 
disappear altogether from view; and the directions given to 
Timothy in reference to the admitting of persons to the ministry 
are applicable to every age of the Church. Natural endowments 
for teaching or governing, and proved moral qualifications, were 
to govern his choice. "A bishop" must be "apt to teach," or 
have the xaQiana Sidaaxcdiag always at command, so that the 
Church might not be dependent for edification upon the extraor- 
dinary impulses of the Spirit now sensibly waning : he must also 
be one who has given proof, by "well ruling his own house," of 
being qualified for the difficult task of governing the church of 
God. The deacons, too, must be selected on account of their 
known integrity of character ; and not without a previous proba- 
tion. At first, the duties of the presbytery bore a strict resem- 
blance to those of the elders of the synagogue, whose proper 
function was, not to teach, but to maintain order during public 
worship, and to conduct the public business of the society : it was 
by no means necessary, perhaps not usual, that a Christian pres- 
byter should both rule and teach. But in his first epistle to 
Timothy, St. Paul connects the two functions more closely, and 




392 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

presbyters "begin to be regarded as also the ordinary teachers of 
the Church. " Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of 
double honour," or of a liberal stipend, "especially they who 
labour in the word and doctrine ;" that is, such presbyters as, to 
their ordinary office of ruling, add that of giving public instruc- 
tion. All these are indications, not to be mistaken, of an impend- 
ing change in the manner of the divine administration of the 
Church ; of the approach of a state in which the spiritual gifts for 
the Christian ministry should be confined to the sanctifying of 
those natural endowments which distinguish one Christian from 
another, and the communication of the ordinary and habitual 
graces of " power and love, and of a sound mind." The difference 
between the first age of the Church, when the blossoms of spiritual 
influence were thrown out in extraordinary abundance, and every 
subsequent period, is confessed: but the question is, does the 
difference relate to principles, or to circumstantials merely ? Un- 
questionably to the latter : otherwise to us the greater portion of 
the teaching of Scripture on the subject of the ministry becomes 
a dead letter. If the nature of the Christian ministry, and the 
principles of its origin and perpetuation, are not to be gathered 
from the earlier epistles of St. Paul, Scripture is not profitable to 
us for instruction upon that subject. But this, in fact, is exactly 
the point of instruction which that portion of the divine Word is 
calculated to furnish. It presents us with the true idea of the 
ministry of the new covenant, which is there seen in its primary 
state, and before it has settled into a form of outward consistency. 
And what we gather from the statements of St. Paul is, that the 
Christian ministry is a function of the Church which it is intended 
to edify; that "gifts" — that is, in the first age extraordinary 
spiritual powers, and afterwards intellectual and moral endow- 
ments sanctified by divine grace — enter into the idea of it ; that 
Christ Himself, not the Church nor the minister of ordination, 
bestows these gifts ; and that the outward commission, being but 
a recognition of the gift previously existing and an authority to 
exercise it, is, though ordinarily necessary, subordinate in import- 
ance to the interior spiritual reality of which it is the attestation. 

It only remains to draw the necessary inferences respecting the 
necessity of an uninterrupted visible succession. If, by insisting 
upon the importance of this, it be merely meant that the Scriptural 
rule, — so far as a rule is to be gathered from Scripture, — is that 
the authority (t£otWa) to exercise ministerial functions should be 
derived from persons themselves of the ministerial body, no 



ORIGIN OF THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. 393 

objection can be taken against the statement, for undoubtedly 
it appears to be sanctioned by apostolical precedent. This rule 
being established, and the Christian ministry being supposed to 
be instituted in the persons of the Apostles, an apostolic succes- 
sion becomes inevitable. The Apostles would transmit the com- 
mission to others, their successors, not indeed in their apostolical, 
but in their ministerial, functions ; and those whom the Apostles 
set apart to the ministry would, in like manner, ordain others ; 
and so the commission would be perpetuated in a line of visible 
succession. Moreover, since it is an historical fact that towards 
the close of the apostolic age the ministry is found to have as- 
sumed the episcopal form, and that to the bishop was reserved the 
right of ordaining, the ministerial commission must, of course, 
have descended in the line of the episcopate. The fact, therefore, 
that the ministerial succession, beginning with the Apostles, was 
perpetuated in the episcopate, as its regular channel, for more 
than 1500 years after the commencement of the Church, is unde- 
niable ; nor is it necessary to say that needlessly to disturb this 
regular devolution of the ministerial office is a sin, for which those 
guilty of it must give account. Thus far the Protestant can go. 
It is well known that the continental Keformers repeatedly pro- 
tested that, provided liberty were granted them to preach the 
Gospel, they would willingly adhere to the visible succession, 
and exercise their ministerial functions under the Catholic bishops : 
it is well known how much they lamented the necessity under 
which they were placed of deviating from the established order, 
and instituting, as it were, a new succession. * But what if such 
a necessity should arise, as it did in the sixteenth century ? What 
if the only alternative were, as it then was, either to sacrifice the 
Gospel itself, or to dispense with episcopal ordination ? Should he 
be placed in such a position as this, the Protestant would act as 
Luther and Calvin did, under similar circumstances ; nor would 
he be disturbed by the asseverations of his opponents, that thereby 
he would be deprived of a true ministry, and of valid sacrameuts. 
Appealing, as usual, from the ecclesiastical, to the apostolical, 
version of Christianity, recurring to the authentic records of 
inspiration, he would insist upon the fact that the gift, not the 

* "Porro hie iterum volumus testatum, nos libenter conservaturos i msticam et 

canonicam politiam, si modo episcopi desinant in nostras ecclcsias BSBTlre. llu;c nostra 
voluntas et coram Deo et apud omnes gentes ad omncm posteritatem excusabit nos, no nobis 
imputari possit quod episcoporum auctoritas labefactatur, ubi legerint atque audierint 
homines, nos injustam saevitiam episcoporum deprecantes, nihil sequi impetraro potuisse." 
— Melanc. Apol. Conf. c. 7. s. 12. 









394 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



commission, is what is really divine in the ministry, and that the 
two are not, by Christ's institution, inseparable. Scripture leads 
him to believe that wherever the pure Word of God is preached 
and the sacraments rightly administered, there will be a portion 
of Christ's mystical body ; and that Christ will not leave that por- 
tion of His body without pastors spiritually qualified to minister 
to it. Ministers are given for the sake of the Church, not the 
Church for the sake of the ministry. He would conclude, there- 
fore, that when a Luther, or a Calvin, driven from the existing 
visible Church by the hostility of its bishops to the Gospel, per- 
ceived, in the separate communions which they were compelled 
•to establish, men spiritually qualified, as far as human eye could 
discern, for the edifying of the body of Christ, they did right in 
recognizing the gift of Christ, and setting such apart to the minis- 
try by the apostolic rite of imposition of hands with prayer. In 
this they could not doubt that they were acting as the Apos- 
tles themselves would have acted under similar circumstances. 
Christ had given them pastors: their part was to send them 
into the vineyard. The Catholic bishop himself could do no 
more than this. To sum up briefly : — the Protestant admits that 
the ministerial commission was intended to be perpetuated in an 
uninterrupted visible succession from the Apostles, and that where 
such a succession exists, the ministry is in its proper normal state : 
but he cannot admit that the true essence of the ministry lies in 
the visible succession, any more than he can admit that the true 
essence of the Church lies in its ritual or polity ; and consequently 
he does not venture to pronounce those churches which, from 
whatever cause, have lost the succession, to be without a legiti- 
mate ministry or efficacious sacraments. The Protestant impugns 
neither the fact nor the (general) necessity of the visible succes- 
sion ; while the Eomanist would hardly maintain that nothing 
enters into the idea of a minister of the New Testament save the 
outward commission : the difference is, that the former lays more 
stress upon the inward preparation of the heart, which is the gift 
of God ; the latter upon the external vocation, which comes from 
man : just as, to recur to the opposite conceptions which they 
entertain of the Church itself, the Protestant regards the living 
faith wrought in the hearts of Christians by the Holy Ghost as 
the specific difference of the body of Christ, while the Romanist 
assigns the same place to its external characteristics. 



CHAPTEK 11. 

THE POWERS OF THE CLERGY. 

The discussion hitherto has related to the abstract questions ot 
the mode in which the ministerial office comes into existence, the 
law of its perpetuation, and the sense in which it is directly of 
divine institution: we have now to inquire into the nature of the 
ministerial office itself, or the relation in which the persons for- 
mally invested with it stand towards the other members of the 
Church. Eomanism invests the ministers of the Gospel with a 
twofold character, which the Protestant cannot, except in a modi- 
fied sense, recognize as belonging to them : according to the deci- 
sions of the Council of Trent, the government of the Church is a 
hierarchy, or the relation of the clerical body to the Christian peo- 
ple is that of a secular magistracy to its subjects, and Christian 
ministers are mediators between God and man, —that is, are 
priests in the proper sense of the word. 



Section I. 

CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT 

By the hierarchical tendency ascribed to the Komish system is 
meant, not so much the existence of differences of rank among 
the members of the clerical body (for in this there is nothing that 
militates against the principle of Protestantism), as, what the ex- 
pression literally signifies, exclusive government by a priesthood. 
A gradation of ranks in the ministerial order, and, under a proper 
system of checks, an independent ministerial authority, are clearly 
sanctioned in Scripture, and have been proved by experience to 
be eminently conducive to the well-being of the Church. Indeed, 
wherever the Scriptural model of a Church, governed, not by a 
single pastor, but by its college of presbyters, is retained ; wherever 
there is an organization of the clerical body ; there must exist the 

395 









396 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



relation of superior to inferior. So it was from the first. If Timo- 
thy and Titus were not formal bishops, they were yet placed, for 
the time, in authority, not only over the Church at large, but over 
presbyters also. But the hierarchial principle, as it is embodied 
in Eomanism, appears under a form very different from this. ISTot 
content with assigning to Christian ministers their legitimate share 
of power and influence, Eomanism virtually merges the Church in 
the ministry, and makes the former a mere adjunct of the latter. 
Obedience to the Church signifies, in the mouth of a Eomanist, 
implicit submission to the priesthood, to whom, he is taught to 
believe, Christ has committed the sole government of His Church ; 
it being their province to command, while the duty of the laity is 
to render unquestioning obedience as to the representatives of 
Christ upon earth. In conformity with this doctrine, the adminis- 
tration of ecclesiastical affairs in the most important particulars — 
such as the appointment of pastors, the exercise of discipline, and 
the determining of points of doctrine — is in the hands of the 
priesthood, the laity being wholly excluded from any share therein. 
No one who has looked into the formularies of Trent, or the 
writings of Eomish theologians, can have failed to perceive how 
thoroughly this principle is interwoven with the whole system. 
Hence is to be explained the prominence given to the duty of obe- 
dience to the Church, — that is, to her spiritual rulers, and the 
characteristic application of terms derived from civil magistracy 
to express the relation of pastors and people; the former being 
the principes and optimates, &c, the latter the plebs, of the eccle- 
siastical commonwealth. Spiritual illumination being, according 
to the Eomish theory, not the property of the whole body, but 
the prerogative of the priestly caste, the laity is necessarily re- 
garded as in a state of spiritual childhood, under a paternal, but 
despotic government ; and it would be contrary to all the analo- 
gies of nature, to entrust a share in the administration of affairs to 
those whose spiritual discernment is supposed to be so immature : 
no earthly parent consults his children in laying down rules for 
the management of his household ; no ruler of a rude and igno- 
rant people deems it necessary to seek their concurrence in framing 
the laws by which they are to be governed. To prevent anoma- 
lies of this kind, the divine Head of the Church, we are told, has 
committed to the priesthood — his organs and representatives — a 
plenary commission to decide authoritatively in controversies of 
faith, to enact laws, and to inflict ecclesiastical censures, unfettered 
by any will but their own. The hierarchism of Eome is the na- 



turai, and inevitable, consequence of the doctrine that the clergy- 
are, nax iloxr}v, the Church. 

A commission to make laws without the means of enforcing 
obedience to them would obviously be a mockery ; an imperfection 
which we cannot conceive as existing in a divine system. In point 
of fact, ample powers have been lodged in the hands of the spiritual 
fatherhood for the purpose of enforcing obedience to their man- 
dates, and subduing that unwillingness to submit to their correc- 
tive discipline which the corrupt tendencies of human nature may 
be expected, from time to time, to produce. To the priesthood 
has been committed the power of the keys, by means of which the 
kingdom of heaven is either opened or shut, as need may require. 
The priest has but to " retain " the sins of the penitent, by refus- 
ing him absolution, and no pardon can be obtained from heaven : 
while excommunication is complete abscission from Christ. It is 
not without reason that the potestas jurisdictionis, or power over 
the mystical body of Christ, conferred on the priest at his ordina- 
tion, is by Komish writers placed in the power of absolution ; for 
obviously this single " nerve of discipline," as the council of Trent 
calls it, is sufficient, in all ordinary cases, to crush the incipient 
symptoms of an insubordinate spirit. Few among the laity will 
be found hardy enough to rebel, when the penalty may be eternal 
perdition. 

It was not without exciting considerable dissatisfaction in various 
quarters, that the Tridentine canons on the subject of Hierarchy 
were promulgated. That Christian instinct, which has never 
wholly disappeared from the Komish church, even in its worst 
times, and which was now quickened by contact with Protest- 
antism, revolted at the despotic power claimed for the pope over 
the bishops, for the bishops over their clergy, and for the whole 
priesthood over the laity. The very name, it was remarked, of a 
hierarchy carried with it an unchristian sound : the New Testament 
describes the clergy as the ministers, or servants, of the Christian 
people, not their governors. * But these protests were unavailing. 
Gallican Romanism indeed made a successful stand against the 
entire concentration of ecclesiastical power in the papacy ; but to 
admit the laity to an effective share in the government of the 
Church was an idea as much opposed to the principles of Bossuet 

"L'on ajoutait m6me que si Ton eflt voulu se conformer au style et la conduite de J6bus 
Christi, de ses apotres, ou de l'ancienne 6glise, on n'eflt pas du se servir du termo de Hier- 
archic, mais de ceux de Hidrodiaconie ou de HieVodulie, qui indiquent un ministdre et non 
un empire."— Sarpi. torn. iii. p. 69. 






398 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



as to those of Bellarmin. The latter sums up the Eomish doctrine 
on the relation of the clergy to the laity as follows: "It has 
always been believed in the Catholic church, that the bishops in 
their diocese, and the Koman pontiff in the whole church, are real 
ecclesiastical princes; competent, by their own authority, and 
without the consent of the people or the advice of the presbyters, 
to enact laws binding upon the conscience, to judge in causes 
ecclesiastical, like other " (secular) "judges, and, if need be, to 
inflict punishment " (upon gainsay ers). * Eomanism, however, is 
not without its popular element, which consists in this, that "there 
is no one of the Christian commonalty but may become a member 
of the episcopate, or governing body,"f 

The restoration, in theory at least, of the laity to their proper 
place in the Church, was an immediate consequence of the refor- 
mation. By reasserting the two great scriptural doctrines of the 
universal priesthood of Christians, and of the indwelling of the 
Spirit, not in a priestly caste, but in the whole body of the faithful, 
Luther and his contemporaries shook the edifice of sacerdotal 
usurpation to its base, and recovered for the Christian laity the 
rights of which they had been unlawfully deprived. Justification 
by faith robbed the confessional of its terrors, and the priest of his 
most formidable engine of tyranny, — the assumed power of re- 
mitting and retaining sins. The Church ceased to be a synonome 
for the clergy, and an inquiring age investigated and disallowed 
the claim of the latter to be the special repositories of spiritual 
illumination. The change was indeed " like life from the dead." 
The lay members of the body of Christ emerged from the spiritual 
imbecility which they had been taught to regard as their natural 
state, and became free, not from the yoke of Christ, but from that 
of the priest. A reaction of sentiment so great would naturally 
give rise to occasional excesses on the other side ; and in some 
instances the recovered liberty of the Church ran wild into license. 
.In others, the legitimate functions of the laity, though acknow- 
ledged in articles and confessions, were never actually restored; 
the secular government, as the representative of the Christian 
people at large, being made the repository of those powers which 
were formerly exercised by the Koman pontiff or his delegates. 
The proper adjustment and admixture of lay and clerical influence 
is a problem which yet remains to be solved by most of the re- 
formed churches of Europe. But to return to the point under 
discussion. 



* De Rom. Pont. I iv. c. 15. 



t Bellarm. Ibid. 1. iv. c. 15. 



MINISTERS NOT "LORDS OVER GOD'S HERITAGE." 399 

It is needless to say that the assumption by which the exclusive 
hierarchism of the Komish church seeks to justify itself, — viz. 
that the clergy constitute the Church xar Qopiv — is wholly 
groundless. The distinction between laity and clergy is — if we 
assign to the latter term its strict meaning — an unscriptural one. 
In St. Peter's view, the whole Church, and not any particular part 
of it, is the Lord's clerisy, or peculiar portion : * nor do any of 
the sacred writers speak of the ministry's being more essential to 
the Church than the Church is to the ministry. There is indeed a 
sense in which the distinction just mentioned is admissible ; but 
in this legitimate sense it merely means that in the Church there 
exists a diversity of spiritual gifts, and that some members of it 
possess ministerial gifts, while the rest do not, who, however, may 
possess other endowments equally necessary to the well-being of 
the Christian body. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that 
Scripture, far from making the ministers of Christ the mere organs 
of the congregation, everywhere invests them with an independent 
and effective authority. They are described as "leaders" of the 
flock, to whom obedience is due ; as " overseers " of the church of 
God ; and the charges given to Timothy and Titus, in their simply 
ministerial capacity, to "rebuke sharply," "to command and 
teach," and to "reject" the contumacious and self-willed, prove 
that authority of no contemptible kind was committed to their 
hands. The very warning which St. Peter addresses to the pres- 
byters, not to "lord it over the flock," presupposes the possession 
by them of powers which they might be tempted to abuse. In 
short, no principle of ecclesiastical polity is more clearly deducible 
from Scripture than that the sovereignty of a church resides not in 
the people apart from their pastors. This, however, being admit- 
ted, the converse also remains true, that the sovereignty of a 
church is not in the pastors exclusively of the people. The pro- 
per adjustment of lay and clerical influence depends upon the 
^maintenance of three important rules commended to us by apos- 
tolic precedent; which, while they trench not upon the legitimate 
authority of the ministerial order, counteract, wherever they are 
in operation, the growth of hierarchical despotism. 

The first is, the free admission of the laity to the deliberative 
assemblies of the Church. Nothing can be more contraiy either 
to the spirit or the letter of the New Testament than that ecclesi- 
astical synods should be composed of the clergy alone. This 

* Mi7<5 <!){ KaraKvptevovrts rdv K\fipw¥. — 1 Pet. V. 3. 



400 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



appears both from the general structure of the apostolic epistles, 
which, while treating upon all points of doctrine and discipline, 
are addressed, not to the clergy only, but to the Church at large, 
and from the precedent of the apostolic council held at Jerusalem, 
which we may presume to have been intended to be the model of 
such assemblies in after ages. In that council, "the whole church," 
consisting of apostles, elders, and brethren, came together for the 
purpose of deliberation; and the decree ran in the name of the 
whole community. 

It would be interesting, were this the place for such a discus- 
sion, to trace the steps by which the apostolic model of an eccle- 
siastical assembly was gradually departed from, until at length 
not only were the laity, but the presbyters and deacons also, 
excluded from any real share in the government of the Church. 
The synodal system, in itself beneficial and indeed necessary, was 
the proximate cause of the change. When dioceses became con- 
solidated into provinces, it was as natural that there should be 
provincial as it had formerly been that there should be diocesan 
synods. The latter for a long time retained that popular element 
which is the proper counterpoise of sacerdotal influence. Even 
Cyprian, the chief promoter of episcopal authority, declares it to 
have been his rule, from the time that he became a bishop, to do 
nothing without the advice of his presbyters, and the consent of 
his people. * " Common decency," he writes to his clergy, " as 
well as our rule of discipline and manner of" (church) "life, 
requires that we, the bishops, assembling with the clergy, and 
in the presence of the steadfast laity, to whom, on account of their 
faith and obedience, due consideration is to be shown, should 
settle all matters by piously consulting together." f But in the 
provincial synods, to which the more important questions were 
referred for consideration, it soon became the practice for the 
bishops only, as representatives of their respective churches, to 
be formally summoned; the presbyters, if any such attended, 
appearing merely as followers of their bishop, while the laity 
were virtually excluded. For though the doors of the synod were 
not at first absolutely closed against lay persons, yet the latter, 
inasmuch as they sent to it no formal representatives, were 
present, if any did gain admittance, more as spectators than as a 
constituent part of the assembly. At length, in the greater 
councils, whether provincial or general, the whole administrative 



• Epist. 5. Ad Presbyt. et Di&c. 



t Bpiat. 13. Ad Cler. 



MINISTERS NOT "LORDS OVER GOD'S HERITAGE." 401 

power became concentrated in the bishops : they alone possessed 
the right of voting ; and if a few presbyters and laics were still 
found in attendance, it was only for the purpose of discharging 
certain subordinate functions. * The decisions of a council thus 
constituted became binding upon the whole province, or the whole 
church, as the case might be ; and each bishop returned to his own 
diocese to enforce decrees, in the framing of which neither pres- 
byters nor people had had any share. The government of the 
Church had become an oligarchy of the most exclusive de- 
scription. 

It is easy to say, in justification of this departure from apostolic 
practice, that, inasmuch as the bishop, being one with his people, 
and his people with him, cannot be conceived of apart from them, 
the laity were, in fact, present at synods in and through their 
bishops : they were represented in him. f But considerations of 
this refined and mystical kind are not found, in practice, to ope- 
rate very strongly. A clerical corporation, like every other, 
naturally and insensibly tends to its own aggrandizement ; and 
this without perceiving the motives which influence it. Nothing 
would be more unjust than to attribute to the bishops of the third 
and fourth centuries a systematic design to make their own order 
the e-xclusive repository of spiritual power : such nevertheless was 
the actual result of their measures. The love of power, disguising 
itself under a variety of forms, was always at work ; and the most 
pious bishops had little difficulty in persuading themselves that, 
in seeking to augment the influence of the episcopate, they were 
promoting the interests of the Church at large. Not unfrequently 
indeed the circumstances of the time were such as to call for, on 
the part of the bishop, the most vigorous exercise of the preroga- 
tives which his office conferred upon him, in order to prevent the 
Church from becoming a scene of anarchy and disorder ; a fact 
which accounts for, if it does not justify, the expressions which 
meet us in the pages of Ignatius and Cyprian. The picture which 
the epistles of the latter present of that singular class of persons, 
the " confessors," of their spiritual arrogance, and contempt of 
lawful authority, is sufficient to prove that nothing but the utmost 

* "At Catholicorum sententia est, solos praelatos majorea eosquc omnes, id est, cpiscopos, 
in conciliis generalibus ct provincialibus habere jus suffragii decisivi ordinarie : ex prcsby- 
teris autem et aliis clericis ininoribus tautum vocari aliquos viros doctos, qui juvent in 
disputando vel aliis ministeriis : denique ex privatis luicis tantuin vocari aliquos qui 
videantur utiles, vel necessarii ad aliquod ministerium concilii." Bellarm. de Concil. 
lib. i. c. 15. 

t Moehler, Einheit in der Kircbe, p. 211. 

26 



402 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 






stretch of that authority could have availed to keep them within 
bounds. The position, however, which individual bishops were 
thus led to assume, and the claims which they put forward, were 
never abandoned when the circumstances which had given rise to 
them ceased: assumptions which were forced upon Cyprian be- 
came the ordinary style of his successors : every contest between 
the presbyters, or the laity, and the bishops, terminated in favour 
of the latter : and thus by continual accretions, each small in it- 
self, the hierarchical system attained those gigantic proportions 
which it exhibited in the middle ages. * 

No Church can be in a healthy condition which excludes from 
the administration of its affairs any constituent part of the body 
ecclesiastic. They who feel that they are regarded not as a part 
of Christ's body, but as an appendage to the priesthood, will na- 
turally cease to feel an interest in the preservation and purity of 
the Church ; and a spirit of indifference, perhaps the most foreign 
of all tempers to the Gospel, will take the place of that hearty 
sympathy and co-operation which springs from a felt identification 
of interests. There can be no genuine church feeling, where there 
is no church life ; and there can be no church life where the re- 
lation of pastors and people resembles that of governors and sub- 
jects, or where one order of the clerical body absorbs in itself the 
powers which belong to the whole, and can enact laws without 
the concurrence, and even against the will, of the other orders. 
It is our Lord's injunction that the spirit in which civil govern- 
ment is carried on should be banished from the community of his 



* The statements of Ignatius on Episcopacy have usually been thought to overstep the 
limits of sobriety; but they are mild when compared with those of the Apostolical Consti- 
tutions. From these spurious, but very ancient, compositions the reader may form an 
accurate notion of the prevailing cast of theological sentiment towards the beginning of the 
fourth century. Their spuriousness detracts nothing frem their value in this respect, for 
the writer, whoever he may have been, must be supposed faithfully to reflect the opinions 
of his age. To bishops the Constitutions assign the following prerogatives : — To mediate 
between God and man, and to represent God upon earth : h imaicoKos .... ^£<xir>jf Qeov *ai 
iftojv iv TdTf np6i avTOV \arptiai<; . . . . <5i' v<5an>j /cat Kvcvfiaros avayRvvfiaag ipa; ci$ vlodcaiav 
.... ovtos vpaiv /JacnXtvj ical Svvaarris, ovtos vyLuiv iniytio$ Qeo; ficra Qs6v, — L. 2. c 66. Et 
ovv ippidrj M.uiV(rrjg wo Kvpiov 0cdf, «rai vp.iov h iiriaKOwts els Oedv Terijif\aQui, KaX b Siaxovos a* 
7po<}>r\TTis aiirov. — Ibid. c. 30. To possess the keys of heaven and hell: ovtoi yap napa Qtta 
£a>rJs Kal Oavarov i^ovaiav et\fj<f>a(rtv iv rw SlK&^StV rovf Jinaprrjicdras icai Kara6uca$civ els Oavarov 
wvpog aiWc'ou, KcuXvtiv hjiapridv rovs emarpiipovras, xai faoyovttv airovg. — Ibid. C. 33. To be 
sole judges between Christians : roTs yap upevaiv (t. t. the bishops) eircTpomr) xpivetv fidvois' 5n 
upjjrai avrols, Kpipa. Sixaiov Kpiverc. — (Deut. i. 26. and 16. 18.) Ibid. c. 36. And to be 
Buperior to temporal sovereigns ; Tourouj apxovras vpuiv xal 0aai\eTs iiycTo-Oat vopiStre, *al 
&<UTfiQV{ wj Pa<ri\ev<Ti npoa<p£pere .... Saw rolvvv ip v X*l oJjfiaros xpelrroiv, roaovru) lepotavvt) 
ffaaiXelas. — Ibid. c. 34. 



MINISTERS NOT "LORDS OVER GODS HERITAGE." 403 

followers; that nothing resembling a secular lordship (ol flaoiUTg 
z<ai> tdvojv xvoievovaiv avzojv) should find a place in his Church. 
To exclude this evil is hardly possible where the councils of the 
Church are composed exclusively of clerical persons, sitting in 
secret conclave, and jealously refusing to admit the laity to a share 
in their deliberations. 

The second point in which the laity have joint rights with the 
clergy is in the appointment of pastors ; not in the transmission 
of the ministerial commission (for this, as we have seen, is the 
peculiar prerogative of the clergy), but in the local settlement of 
the pastor. The rule which Scripture furnishes on this point is, 
that no pastor is to be placed over a Church without its consent 
having been previously obtained thereto. In the Eomish system 
this regulation would, obviously, be an anomaly. For the laity 
being there regarded as in a state of spiritual pupilage, and, there- 
fore, unable to discern what is best for their spiritual interests, to 
seek their concurrence in the institution of him who is to be over 
them in the Lord would be as unwise as unnecessary : a right like 
this can be safely entrusted to those only who have attained to 
some maturity of Christian knowledge, and spiritual wisdom. 

There is no point of apostolic order which seems more easy of 
establishment than the one of which we are now speaking. The 
first occasion on which, after our Lord's ascension, an election to 
an ecclesiastical office took place was that on which a successor to 
Judas Iscariot was to be chosen. The mode of proceeding in this 
instance deserves notice. If in any case it might have seemed 
allowable to dispense with the concurrence of the people in eccle* 
siastical appointments, this was such a case : that Apostles only 
should fill up the vacancy in the apostolical college, so peculiar in 
its functions, so much elevated by spiritual endowments above the 
rest of the Church, would appear but reasonable. Yet on no other 
occasion is there a more express mention made of popular inter- 
vention. The disciples, not the Apostles alone, being assembled 
together to the number of a hundred and twenty, Peter, in an 
address directed to the whole assembly, introduces the subject. 
At his suggestion, "they " — that is, the Apostles and disciples — 
"appointed" two individuals as the best fitted for the vacant 
office ; and referring the decisive selection between the two to the 
Lord Himself, they all "prayed," and "gave forth their lots."* 
The same course was pursued in the first appointment of deacons. 
The Apostles brought the matter before " the multitude of the 

• Acts, i. 23-26. 






404 



CHUECH OF CHRIST. 



disciples/ directing them to choose out among themselves those 
whom they should judge best qualified for the new office: the 
multitude make the selection, and present the persons selected to 
the Apostles, for the purpose of receiving the imposition of their 
hands. * It is true that if, as some have thought, f those seven 
ministers of the Church of Jerusalem were not deacons, properly 
so called, — that is, as that term was afterwards understood — but 
lay administrators of the revenues of the Church, the transaction 
no longer constitutes a precedent for the principle of which we 
are speaking; but, on the other hand, it becomes one for the 
equally important rule, that, in the administration of church 
affairs, and especially in the management of the funds of the 
Church, the laity should have a part, either personally or by their 
representatives. Thus, in whatever point of view we choose to 
regard the appointment of Stephen and his companions, it is 
adverse to the clerical exclusiveness of the Komish system. 

Passing onwards in the history of the early Church we read 
that, in locating ministers in the newly planted churches of Asia, 
Paul and Barnabas took the suffrages of the people ; and in this 
way, " ordained them elders in every church: " conceding to each 
society the power of selection, but reserving to themselves the 
right of approval and institution. The remark that the word 
%EiQororr]6avTEg, which is the one that occurs in the passage alluded 
to, is often used to signify the simple act of appointing, and need 
not necessarily mean appointing with the consent of others, is a 
just one; but it is better, where there is no reason, as there is 
none here, for departing from it, to adhere to the natural, and 
original, signification of the word, which is, to appoint officers by 
means of suffrage ; J especially when the practice of the Apostles 
on other occasions is in favour of this interpretation. It may be 
added that the notices which the New Testament contains con- 
cerning the rule by which the Apostles guided themselves in the 
settlement of pastors are confirmed by the weighty testimony of 
Clement of Rome : " Those," he writes, " whom either the Apostles 
or other distinguished men " (their delegates) " placed in the min- 
istry, with the consent of the whole Church " (that is, of each par- 
ticular church), "it is not right to depose from their office," &c.§ 

* Acts, vi. 2-6. t Bilson, Perpet. Gov. &c. pp. 109, 110. 

X See Wahl's Lexicon, \^9° rovetv, and the examples of the use of the word there given. 
In the sense in which it is used by later ecclesiastical writers,— viz. "to lay hands upon,"— 
it does not occur in the New Testament. 

? Tov? ovv Karaaradivras in CKCtvcjy, fi ficratv «</>' iripoiv cXXoyi/ia>i> dvipuv, ovvtvfcicnoaom "?S 
UicMtjias n-d^j, &c.,- 1 Epist. 8. 44. For several centuries after the Christian era, the 



MINISTERS NOT "LORDS OVER GOD'S HERITAGE." 405 

The third, and perhaps the most important of the rights which 
belong to the laity, relates to the exercise of discipline. That the 
power of inflicting church censures is to be vested not in the 
clerical body alone, but in the whole Church, rests on the clearest 
evidence of Scripture. The final court of appeal which our Lord, 
speaking by anticipation, establishes in cases of disagreement 
among Christians, is "the Church," — i. e. the whole congregation; 
conferring at the same time, upon "the Church" the power of 
enforcing its decrees by the penalty of excommunication. By the 
Romish controversialists, and the fathers before them, we are told 
that by " the Church " in this passage is meant the rulers of the 
Church ; and it may be admitted that to the presiding bishop, or 
elders, it ordinarily appertains to pronounce, and carry out, the 
decree of expulsion. As long as the legislative power resides in 
the whole society, so that no decision in matters of discipline can 
be come to without the consent of the people, there is no danger, 
and a manifest propriety, in permitting the clerical body, or a 
particular member of it, to be the organ of the community in 
promulgating, and executing, its decrees. But this is not what is 
really meant. The object is to make it appear, contrary to the 
plain meaning of the words, that the power of inflicting church 
censures is lodged exclusively in the hands of the clergy ; whereas 
it is "the Church," — the whole society under the presidency of 
its pastors — that is to adjudicate upon the case, and pronounce 
sentence. 

The rule which the Apostles prescribed to themselves may be 
gathered from the case of the incestuous Corinthian (1 Cor. v.). 
St. Paul, after reproving the Corinthians for their laxity of disci- 
pline, informs them that, by virtue of that apostolic authority which 
was not confined to any one Christian society, but extended over 
the whole Church, he had resolved to deliver the offender " to 
Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that the Spirit" might "be 
saved ; " superseding, apparently, for the time being, the regular 
authorities of the Church. Yet, although it is an Apostle, and not 
an ordinary bishop, or college of elders, that here enforces disci- 
pline, he assumes not to himself the power of acting independently 
of the Church : on the contrary, he regards what he is about to 
do as the joint act of himself and the society. It was when the 

church carefully observed the Apostolic, rule on this point. "Propter quod plebs obsequeng 
praeceptis dominicis et Deum metuens a peccatore praeposito separaro so debet, nee se ad 
sacrilegi sacerdotis sacrificia miscere, quando ipsa maxime habeat potestatcm vel eligendi 
dignos sacerdotes vel indignos recusandi."— Cyp. Epist. 68. See also Apost ConstIL L 
8. c. 4. 



406 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



Church was "gathered together," he being "present in spirit," 
that the sentence of excommunication was to be carried into 
effect. * In the second epistle, too, he speaks of the transaction as 
a "punishment inflicted by many" (2 Cor. ii. 6.), 

From this we learn wherein resides the sovereignty of a Christian 
society. Of all ecclesiastical acts, the enforcement of penalties, 
and especially the expulsion of a member, is the most sovereign : 
indeed the latter is the only sovereign act which a church, as such, 
can perform. It is the ultimate penalty for ecclesiastical offences, 
and corresponds to the excision of a corrupt member from the 
body politic by capital punishment ; an act in performing which 
the sovereignty of the state is especially exhibited. The infliction 
of secular pains and penalties being interdicted, excommunication, 
with its spiritual consequences, is the only means to which, in the 
last resort, a Christian society can have recourse for the purpose 
of enforcing obedience to its regulations ; and the power of ex- 
communication belonging, according to apostolic rule, not to the 
clergy alone, but to the whole society, it follows that the sover- 
eignty of a church resides not in the clergy apart from the people, 
or in the people apart from their pastors, but in the whole com- 
munity, composed of people and pastors. 

Wherever the clergy possess an uncontrolled power of inflicting 
church censures, it is next to impossible but that a spiritual des- 
potism, of a most oppressive kind, will be the result. The two 
dogmas, that the sovereignty of the Church is in the priesthood, 
and that the priest is the representative of Christ, empowered to 
remit or retain sins, to open or bar access to God, were sufficient 
to enslave the mind of Europe, both spiritually and intellectually, 
for a thousand years. Nor, were they now to gain a footing 
amongst us, would they be found to have lost aught of their in- 
herent power. Under such a system, the spiritual governors of 
the Church, invested with powers from which there is no appeal 
save, perhaps, an appeal to a tribunal composed exclusively of 
their own order, and without the salutary check of lay influence, 
may enact what laws, and annex to those laws what sanctions, they 
please ; while for the laity there is no safety but in abject submis- 
sion. For over the refractory hangs the rod of ecclesiastical 
censure, wielded by an order which, as experience has shown, can 
with difficulty resist the temptation to use the power committed 
to it, more for the advancement of its own supposed interests than 
for the welfare of the Church at large. 

* 1 Cor. v. 4. 



Section II. 

CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 

If the relation of pastors to people is not that of governors to 
subjects, still less is the Christian ministry a proper priesthood. 
To discuss this important subject in all its bearings would be in- 
consistent with the limits of a work like the present, besides which 
its position in the Eomish system can only be fully understood 
when it is considered in connexion with its correlative, — the 
proper sacrifice of the Eucharist. Little more will here be at- 
tempted than to examine how far Scripture warrants the statement 
that there exists under the Gospel dispensation a human priest- 
hood. 

It is difficult to determine to which we are to assign priority in 
point of time, the transformation of the Lord's Supper into a sacri- 
fice, or that of the Christian ministry into a priesthood. The 
Council of Trent, as might be expected, adopts the former hypo- 
thesis, arguing that since Christ appointed the visible sacrifice of 
the Eucharist, there must needs be a priesthood to administer it ; * 
but it seems more probable that the notion of a Christian priest- 
hood was historically antecedent to, and the parent of, the corres- 
ponding doctrine concerning the Eucharist. As has been already 
observed, the cessation of the temple services at Jerusalem was, in 
all probability, the signal for the more open manifestation of those 
Judaizing tendencies which had long been leavening the mind of 
the Church ; and the natural result of the custom which arose of 
designating Christian ministers by the terms proper to the Leviti- 
cal priesthood would be the actual transfer to them of sacerdotal 
functions. But since a priesthood must have a sacrifice to offer, it 
was inevitable that the Eucharist, in which a commemoration is 
made of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, should in due time 
be transmuted into a real propitiatory offering. 

To whichever dogma we choose to assign priority of time, there 
is no element of Komanism of more ancient date. It may well be 
called the ttqcotov wevdog of the Church system. Already, by Ig- 
natius, the Lord's table is commonly termed "the altar," and even 

• Sesa. 23. cap. 1. 

407 



408 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

the more scriptural Clement compares Christian ministers to the 
high priest, priests, and Levites, * though perhaps only by way of 
illustration or analogy. Later writers transfer the terms belonging 
to the old dispensation to Christianity in a manner so habitual and 
unconscious as to prove that the sacrificial theory had become 
thoroughly incorporated with the Christianity of the age. In 
truth, it is not too much to say that for none of the articles of the 
Apostles' Creed could stronger and more universal testimony be 
produced from antiquity than that which exists for the dogma of 
a human priesthood under the Gospel. Whether we turn to the 
east or west, to the pages of Chrysostom or of Augustin, we find 
it everywhere acknowledged and taught. If Vincentius's rule — ■ 
quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus — is to be so under- 
stood that, Scripture, the first link in the chain of written tradition, 
being excluded, whatever can be proved to have been universally, 
and from the first, taught by the fathers is to be received as part 
of the apostolic deposit of doctrine, there is no question but that 
the dogma alluded to possesses the strongest claims to be so 
received. 

The decisions of the Council of Trent on this subject are as fol- 
lows : — Sacrifice and priesthood are by the appointment of God so 
connected, that in every dispensation both have been found to exist. 
Since, therefore, the new covenant possesses a visible sacrifice, 
appointed by Christ Himself, — viz. that of the Eucharist — it was 
necessary that there should also be establisned a visible and exter- 
nal priesthood, succeeding to that of the old dispensation. The 
Christian priesthood was instituted by our Lord in the persons of 
His Apostles, upon whom He conferred the power of consecrating 
and offering up His body and blood, and of remitting and retaining 
sins : from the Apostles this power has descended to their succes- 
sors. In the sacrament of orders, which is the rite of consecration 
to the priest's office, a new spiritual position, or standing, is con- 
ferred, which is necessary to the validity of sacerdotal acts. At the 
same time, and by the same ordinance, an ineffaceable impression, 
or character, is stamped upon the inner man ; so that it is as impos- 
sible for a Christian priest to revert to the condition of a layman 
as it would have been for a Jewish priest to undo the fact of his 
natural birth. This impressed character is what constitutes, 
amidst the varying phases of the visible Church, the identity of 
the priestly line ; just as the true personality of the Levitical priest- 

•Epist. 1. s. 40. 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 400 

hood, under every form of the Jewish commonwealth, lay in its 
descent from Aaron * 

It is easy to see why the " impressed character" was attached to 
the sacrament of orders, as well as to those of baptism and confir- 
mation. From the character impressed in three out of the seven 
sacraments, there is supposed to arise a specific difference of spiritual 
standing in those upon whom it is impressed, whereby they are 
distinguished from their brethren in Christ, or from unbelievers. 
Thus by the character impressed in baptism, the baptized person 
is transferred from the kingdom of Satan to that of Christ ; in con- 
firmation he is enlisted under the banner of Christ, the spiritual 
mark which he receives corresponding to a military brand, or the 
stamp which a shepherd impresses upon his sheep, so that by 
means of it the Church is enabled to recognise, and claim as deser- 
ters, those who renounce her authority ; and by the sacrament of 
orders, he becomes a member of the priestly caste, whose office it 
is to mediate between their brethren and God. It has already 
been remarked that the devolution of sacerdotal powers in a line 
of visible succession, commonly by natural birth, is a characteristic 
of religious systems which are intended to operate from without 
inwards ; it may be added that such systems always assign to the 
priesthood, as compared with the rest of the worshippers, a specific 
difference of standing in relation to the Deity worshipped. The 
priesthood alone has immediate access to the divine presence ; by 
the priesthood alone the Deity declares His will ; the people hold 
converse with the Deity mediately, through the priest : such is the 
sacerdotal system, as it existed in the various pagan forms of reli- 
gion, and in the preparatory dispensation of the law. Under the 
law there existed not merely differences of function, or office (these 
still exist under the Gospel), but differences of nearness to God, 
according as the worshipper was a priest, or not of the priesthood. 
And this specific difference of position was notified, as became a 
symbolical system, by the simple fact of natural birth ; the mediat- 
ing instrument being by this means distinctly defined, and visibly 
separated from the rest of the Lord's people. Under the new law, 
as befits its more spiritual nature, the outward distinction of natural 
birth has given place to one of an internal, psychological, charac- 
ter ; and the Christian priest receives at ordination an impressed 
character, or inward disposition (in the passive sense of the word), 
which is indelible, and which raises him to a higher level in respect 

• Sess. 23. cap. 1. Ibid. Can. 1-6. 



410 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

of access to God than that which the Christian commonality occu- 
pies. It must be remembered that the impressed character has 
nothing moral in it, and may exist in those who have no sanctify- 
ing faith. 

But to return : — the speedy and universal corruption of the Gos- 
pel upon this capital point is, if we consider the energetic manner 
in which the Judaizing tendencies of the Apostolic age were met 
by the Apostles, and especially by St. Paul, and the marked silence 
of Scripture upon the sacerdotal character of Christian ministers, 
one of the most striking facts in ecclesiastical history. In dealing 
with the subject on Scriptural grounds, the protestant feels himself 
embarrassed, not by the poverty, but by the abundance of the evi- 
dence which proves that the doctrine of a human priesthood is irre- 
concileable with the spirit and the letter of Apostolic Christianity. 
This was acknowledged at the council of Trent by a candid Portu- 
guese theologian, who counselled the fathers to abandon the endea- 
vour to prove the point from Scripture, and to rest the weight of 
the argument upon the testimony of tradition.* The doctrine 
of the Apostles on the subject of priesthood is as follows: — 

The idea of a mediator between God and man springs naturally 
from the consciousness which exists on man's part of being, by 
nature, in a state of alienation from God. Wherever the idea of 
God, as a being of infinite holiness, is not quite lost, man shrinks 
from directly approaching the divine presence ; his feeling being 
that expressed in the words of Simon Peter, " depart from me, for 
I am a sinful man, O Lord." Hence every form of paganism, of 
ancient or modern times, had its priests, or certain persons sup- 
posed to be divinely authorized to mediate between the deity 
worshipped and His worshippers. To these persons, thus invested 

* George d' Ataide. His observations, as recorded by Sarpi, are worth transcribing : — II 
dit d'abord ; Qu'on ne pouvoit pas douter que la messe ne fut un sacrifice, puisque les peres 
l'avoient enseigne ouvertement, et l'avoient repete en toute occasion. II rapporta sur cela 
les temoignages des peres grecs et latins de la primitive eglise, et des anciens martyrs ; et 
parcourant ensuite tous les siecles jusqu'au nStre, il soutint qu'il n'y avoit aucun ecrivain 
chretien qui n'eut appelle l'eucharistie un sacrifice; et conclut qu'on devoit regarder cette 
doctrine comme venant certainement d'une tradition apostolique, qui etoit un fondement 
suffisant pour etablir un article de foi, comme le concil l'avoit enseigne des le commencement. 
Mais il ajouta: que e'etoit affoiblir ce foudement, que de lui en joindre d'imaginaires ; et 
qu'en voulant trouver dans l'ecriture ce qui n'y 6toit pas, on donnoit occasion de calomnier la 
v6rite a ceux qui voyoient qu'on l'appuyoit sur un sable aussi mouvant. De-la il passa a 
examiner l'un apres l'autre les endroits do l'ancien et du nouveau Testament rapport^s par 
les theologiens, et montra qu'il n'y avoit aucun, dout on put tirer une preuve claire du sacri- 
fice.— Sarpi, vol. ii. p. 384. The historian adds that this theologian's presence at the coun- 
cil was thenceforward dispensed with. 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 411 

with an official sanctity, it was felt to be a relief to delegate those 
acts of religions homage which the worshipper himself shrank 
from performing. 

What natural feeling had spontaneously prompted received in 
the Jewish economy a divine sanction, a human priesthood hav- 
ing been appointed by God to mediate between Himself and His 
people. The reason of this appointment was that, under the elder 
dispensation, sin, though it was susceptible of pardon through 
prospective faith in the promised Saviour was not actually taken 
away; and therefore the way into the holiest — the immediate 
presence of God — was not yet made manifest, or laid open, to all 
believers. Christ had not yet become incarnate; God and man 
were not, as yet, brought into perfect union in the person of 
Immanuel ; redemption, though determined in the counsels of 
God, was not yet accomplished : consequently, all that could be 
vouchsafed to the believer under the law was a typical or sym- 
bolical, representation (oxiav xwv ^ellovrcov ayaOwv), sufficient to 
excite hope and confidence towards God, of the fulness of spiritual 
privilege which belongs to the Christian.* Hence an earthly 
priesthood and animal sacrifices were incorporated in the Mosaic 
law ; the felt insufficiency of the latter leading, as we must 
suppose, the reflecting Jew to infer the typical, and transitory, 
character of the former. 

Christianity does not abrogate the idea of priesthood ; on the 
contrary, it exhibits the fulfilment of the unconscious vaticina- 
tions of heathenism, and the substance of the divinely appointed 

* It .is worthy of remark that the advocates of a human priesthood under the Gospel 
are driven, by the stress of their own reasonings, to do away with the essential difference 
between the state of the Jewish and the Christian believer. Thus a recent writer argues 
that, "if it be said that a Christian priesthood is needless, because the work of mediation 
is discharged by Christ alone, the answer is, that such an argument proves a Jewish 
priesthood to have been useless also. If it be added that a Christian priesthood interferes 
with the sole merits of Christ, by providing another way of approaching to God, why 
then did not the Jewish priesthood the same?" and much more to the same effect.— 
Wilbcrforco on the Incarnation Ac, p. 386. The argument proceeds throughout upon 
the supposition that under the Law, no less than under the Gospel, the mediation of 
Christ, in the full and proper sense of the word, was exercised,— that is, in other words, 
that Christ was then incarnate, sin taken away, and the Spirit given. It is no answer to 
say that, prospectively, this was the case ; the prospective nature of the faith of tho Jew,— 
the mere anticipation, as contrasted with the enjoyment, of Gospel privileges, — is the 
very thing that distinguishes religion under the Law from religion under the (iospel. 
The fact that what was vouchsafed to the Jew was the mere promise- which awaited its 
accomplishment, of a sufficient sacrifice, and an effective mediation, is the very circum- 
stance that made a typical priesthood and sacrifices then both possible and beneficial. 
But thus it always is. They who would reduce the Christian to the level of the Jew %re 
constrained, in order to be consistent, to make the Jew a Christian. 



412 CHURCH OP CHRIST. 

symbolism of the Old Testament. The teaching of the New 
Testament upon this point is as follows : the whole of the Jewish 
ceremonial law was of a typical character, and prefigured the 
work and' offices of the Saviour who was to come. The legal 
sacrifices pointed to the one great sacrifice to be offered up upon 
the cross ; the Levitical priesthood was a type of the heavenly 
priesthood of Christ. He it is, the object both of type and pro- 
phecy, who is the true priest and mediator between God and man. 
Through Him all Christians have direct and immediate access to 
God. As we need not, so we have not, any other priest, any 
other advocate with the Father. For the anti-type being come, 
the type necessarily ceases, the reality supersedes the figure. 
Truth, as well as grace, came by Jesus Christ ; that true fellow- 
ship of the Christian with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, of which the whole of the national ritual of the Jew was 
but a symbolical adumbration. 

Such is the testimony of Scripture, and especially of that 
portion of it which is specially designed to instruct us in the 
relation which the Aaronic priesthood bore to that of Christ, — 
the epistle to the Hebrews. This inspired commentary upon the 
Levitical law not only declares that a human priesthood does not 
exist under the Gospel, but explains why such an institution is no 
longer necessary; — viz. that Christ Himself, in His priestly office, 
is a real and all-sufficient mediator between God and man. " If 
perfection were by the Levitical priesthood " — i. e. a human one, 
— " what further need was there that another priest should arise 
after the order of Melchisedec" (His office beiu^ eternal and 
unchangeable), " and not be called after the order of Aaron ? " (in 
the line of the visible succession.)* "If He were upon earth, He 
should not be a priest," (for He was not of the tribe of Levi, and 
while the Jewish temple stood, the priesthood was confined to that 
tribe; an argument which equally proves that His apostles — the 
first link in the chain of the Christian ministry — were not priests, 
several of them, to say the least, not belonging to the tribe of 
Levi,) " seeing that there are priests that offer gifts and sacrifices 
according to the law : who serve unto the example and shadow of 
heavenly things," f those "heavenly things" being, not a new 
Christian priesthood, but Christ's own priestly office exercised by 
Him in heaven. The exercise of Christ's priestly office at the 
right hand of God dates, not from the beginning, but from that 

* fleb. vii. 11. t Ibid. viii. 4, 5. 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 413 

time, when, " being come an high priest of good things to come, 
by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, — 
that is to say, not of , this building ; neither by the blood of bulls 
and goats, but by his own blood, — he entered in once into the 
holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us ; " * by 
which great event a new order of things was introduced, super- 
seding, and rendering unnecessary, the ancient priesthood, and 
every institution of a similar nature. " For the priesthood being 
changed, there is made of necessity a change also in the law ; " 
and that the ancient priesthood is abrogated is " evident, for that 
after the similitude of Melchisedec, there ariseth another," not 
priesthood, but " priest, who is made, not after the law of a carnal 
commandment, but after the power of an endless life." f 

"As every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices, it 
is of necessity that this man have somewhat to offer ;" \ and the 
offering which He presented was His body, once for all, " by one 
offering," perfecting "for ever them that are sanctified." § The 
perfection of this sacrifice forbids the supposition that it is ever to 
be repeated. If the Levitical sacrifices were " offered year by year," 
it was because they could not "make the comers thereunto per- 
fect ; " could not " purge " their " conscience from dead works, to 
serve the living God : " could they have done so, " would they not 
have ceased to be offered ? " || " Christ is not entered into the holy 
places made with hands, which are the figures of the true ; but into 
heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us : nor 
yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entered 
into the holy place with blood of others ; for then must He often 
have suffered since the foundation of the world : but now once in 
the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the 
sacrifice of Himself: " T "now where remission of these " (sins) "is, 
there is no more offering for sin ; " ** and therefore no longer occa- 
sion for sacrificing priests. 

These statements of Scripture not only make it clear that there 
is in the Christian dispensation no other proper priesthood save 
that of Christ Himself, but prove further, that the Protestant, in 
rejecting the dogma of a human priesthood, by no means makes 
the Old Testament a dead letter to Christians, but, on the contrary, 
by referring its types to their proper object, infuses life and mean- 

• Heb. ix. 11, 12. t Ibid. yii. 15, 18. 

X Ibid. viii. 3. I Ibid. x. 10-14. 

J Ibid. x. 1, 2. T Ibid. ix. 24-26. 
•* Ibid. x. 18. 



414 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

ing into the otherwise "carnal ordinances" of the law. Christ 
Himself, not a Christian priesthood, is the true key to the Levitical 
ritual, which, when regarded as symbolical of His offices and work, 
acquires a dignity which does not otherwise belong to it. In itself. 
. the ceremonial law was a system of " beggarly elements," unfitted 
for the maturity of the spiritual man ; and they it is who make it 
typical merely of another order of priests, and an unbloody sacri- 
fice, that, in reality, reduce it to a dead letter, unworthy of its 
divine Author. It is when viewed as prefigurative of the 
Eedeemer's offices, as " the place where the Lord lay " under the 
veil of the ancient covenant, that the symbolical ordinances of the 
Law are rescued from their inherent insignificance: they shine 
with a reflected light, and the luminary that sheds lustre upon 
them is, not a new sacerdotal system adapted to Christianity, but 
the sun of righteousness Himself, the sole priest of His church, 
the fulfilment both of type and prophecy. Truly amazing, indeed, 
it is to those who do not recollect the affinity that exists between 
certain forms of religious error and the natural heart, that the 
ancient church, in the persons of its leading writers and bishops, 
should have so lost sight of the distinctive truths of the Gospel, as 
to reinstate in Christianity that very portion of the preparatory 
dispensation, which most distinctly proclaimed itself, even to the 
pious Jew, to be imperfect and transitory, and only valuable in 
that it was significant of Him who was to come. 

Entirely confirmatory of their express doctrinal statements is 
the studied abstinence of the Apostles, when speaking of the 
Christian ministry, from the use of terms belonging to the Jewish 
law. In Scripture various terms are used to describe the office of 
Christian ministers, — -they are pastors, rulers, teachers, ministers, 
evangelists: but not even once is the term Hiereus — i. e. sacrific- 
ing priest — applied to them, or the Eucharist spoken of as a 
sacrifice. We have no occasion to qualify this statement, because 
in the epistle to the Hebrews (c. xiii. 10.) Christians are said to 
" have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the 
tabernacle;" or because St. Paul declares (Rom. xv. 16.) that bo 
was the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, "that the offerin >- 
up of the Gentiles might be acceptable to God." Unless we are pro- 
pared to maintain that a single expression at the close of a treat 
is sufficient to reverse the conclusions which the author has been 
throughout, and by a variety of arguments, labouring to establish, 
we must interpret the former of these passages so as not to con- 
travene the main scope of the epistle which, as we have seen, is 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 415 

to prove that in Christianity there is no other offering for sin but 
that once offered upon the cross. But where there is no repeated 
offering for sin, there can be no material altar ; and the passage 
therefore can only mean that Christians, in spiritually — i. e. by 
faith — eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ — the 
great victim, who, "that he might sanctify the people with his 
own blood, suffered without the gate," — enjoy a heavenly feast, 
from which the adherents of the Mosaic law, forbidden as they 
were to taste the offerings made on the great day of atonement, 
were, through their very profession of obedience to the law, ne- 
cessarily excluded. * In fact, as Christ is both the victim and the 
priest, so is He the altar also, or, rather, the victim upon the altar ; 
which is nothing more than saying that the constituent elements, 
priest, altar, and sacrifice, which under the law went to make up 
an act of propitiatory sacrifice, are now all united in the one great 
Antitype. As regards the other passage; — that the Gentiles 
should not offer sacrifices, but themselves be offered up an accept- 
able sacrifice to God, was the great object of St. Paul's labours ; 
upon this "sacrifice and service of" their "faith" he was willing 
to "be offered" as a libation ;f but as the sacrifice was the "rea- 
sonable, holy, and lively sacrifice";): of themselves, so the Apos- 
tle's ministration — his Xenovyia, or priestly function, was nothing 
but the preaching of the Gospel. § 

The Apostles do indeed transfer the terms of the Jewish law to 
the Gospel, but it is in such a manner as to exhibit in the most 
striking manner, the modification of meaning which we must then 
attach to them. Instead of describing himself and his colleagues 
as priests, or applying the term at all to Christian ministers, St 
Peter declares all Christians to be " a royal priesthood," and re- 

* V. 12. The argumentative force of the whole passage has not always been pointed 
out by commentators. The parallel is, as throughout the epistle, between the high priest 
and Christ, the ceremony of the great day of atonemont, and the sacrifice of Christ upon 
the cross. On ordinary occasions the bodies of the victims were assigned to the priests for 
their sustenance ; but the offerings made on the great day of atonement were " burned 
without the camp" (v. 11.), not even the priests being permitted to partake of them. The 
Judaizing Christians, therefore, in affirming the continued obligation of the Mosaic law, 
did, on their own principles, exclude themselves from the spiritual banquet of Christ's 
body and blood, offered once for all, and to all believers ; the law forbidding them to eat of 
the flesh of the victims offered on the day of atonement, of which tho sacrifice of Christ 
was the acknowledged anti-type. That the word " altar " is not to be understood literally 
is placed beyond doubt by the nature of the sacrifices to be offered upon it, — viz. those of 
praise and alms-giving. See vv. 15, 16. 

f Phil. ii. 17. J Rom. xii. 1. 

§ E('f to clvai fie \tirovpydv \r\aov Xpiorov tig ra idvij, [cpovpyovvra rd cvayycXtov rot Qtov, 
*a yevrfrai 17 npoo-^opa rwv iOvu>v timp6o6tKTOi, Ac. 



416 



CHURCH OF CHRIST, 



gards the congregation, not the pastors, as the Lord's portion, or 
clergy.* All Christians are priests, not in the figurative sense in 
which the Jewish nation was, on account of its peculiar relation 
to Jehovah, described as "a kingdom of priests," but, in the strict 
and proper sense of the word, because, the way into the holiest 
being now made open, all have immediate access to God through 
Christ, without the intervention of any human mediator. As 
every priest must "have somewhat to offer," Christians have 
their sacrifices, which however are but the spiritual sacrifices, 
either of praise and thanksgiving, " the fruit of the lips giving 
thanks to his name," f or of themselves upon the altar of self- 
denial and love. £ That it is these spiritual sacrifices, and not a 
material offering, that is meant in such passages of prophecy as 
that of Malachi, — " In every place incense shall be offered unto 
my name, and a pure offering" (c. i. 11.), — Melancthon and 
Chemnitz have long ago satisfactorily shown. § 

It was not from any want of familiarity with a priestly insti- 
tute, and visible sacrifices, that this silence of the Apostles respect- 
ing any similar appointments in Christianity proceeded. It was 
under such a system that they themselves had lived, and all their 
natural associations would have led them to invest the office of 
the Christian minister with a sacerdotal character. In fact, re- 
garding them merely as men, the circumstance that they abstained 
from so doing is unnatural, and not to be, on ordinary principles, 
explained; and perhaps nothing more clearly demonstrates the 
divine superintendence under which the New Testament was 
written than the fact that the authors of it, unlettered Jews, as 
most of the Apostles were, never once attribute priestly functions 
to the ministers of the New Covenant. Nothing could have pre- 
served them, in this capital point, from the influence of early pre- 
dispositions, but such a measure of spiritual guidance and illumi- 
nation as has fallen to the lot of none of their successors. 

There are extant three epistles of St, Paul, addressed to Chris- 

* Pet. ii. 5. : v. 3. t Heb. xiii. 15. 

JRom. xii. 1. Compare Phil. iv. 18. 

I " Ipsa Prophetse verba offerunt sententiam. Primum enim hoc proponunt, magnum fore 
nomcn Domini. Id fit per prsedicationeni evangelii. Per hanc enim innotescit nomen Christi, 
et misericordia Patris in Christo prornissa cognoscitur. Praedicatio evangelii parit fidem 
in his qui recipiunt evangelium. Hi invocant Deum, hi agunt Deo gratias, hi tolerant 
afflictiones in confessione, hi bene operantur propter gloriain Christi. Ita fit magnum nomm 
Domini in gentibus. Jncensum igitur et oblatio munda significant non ceremoniam ex opere ope- 
rato, sed omnia alia sacrificia, per quae fit magnum nomen Domini, scilicet, fidem, invoca- 
tionem, praedicationem evangelii, confessionom," &c. — Melancth. Apol. Conf. cap. 12. a. 32. 
Compare Chemnitz, Examon. Cone. Trid. loc. 6. art. 6. s. 8. 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 417 

tian ministers, in which the duties of their office are laid down at 
length ; but among those duties we search in vain for any of a 
properly sacerdotal character. Timothy is directed "to preach 
the Word ; " " to give attendance to reading, exhortation, and 
doctrine ; " to exercise discipline, to ordain elders ; but nowhere 
is he instructed how to offer up the body and blood of Christ ; no- 
where is a commission given him to absolve the Christian people 
from their sins. The New Testament presents us with no Eucha- 
ristic ritual ; no form for the consecration of the elements. Omis- 
sions of this kind in epistles especially designed to be a manual for 
the pastor are, on the supposition of the Christian ministry's being 
a proper priesthood, wholly unaccountable. For wherever there 
is a visible sacrifice and priesthood, it constitutes so important, so 
central, an element in the religious system of which it is a part, 
as to stand out in decided superiority to every other act of wor- 
ship. So it was under the law, and so it is now in the Church of 
Rome : in that Church the eucharistic sacrifice of the mass con- 
stitutes the central feature of Christian worship, and, compared 
with it, every other act of religious service — prayer, preaching, 
and reading — occupies a subordinate position. If St. Paul had re- 
garded Timothy and Titus as priests, it may reasonably be sup- 
posed that directions concerning the discharge of their sacerdotal 
functions of sacrifice and intercession would have occupied as large 
a space in his epistles to them as such subjects do in the pontifical 
of the Jewish priesthood, — the book of Leviticus. In any system 
of religion, there is either no visible sacrificial institute, or, if there 
is, it constitutes the essential part of the system, and absorbs into 
itself all the elements of religious worship. 

It cannot be alleged, in explanation of the silence of the New 
Testament on the Christian sacrifice and priesthood, that, inas- 
much, as Christianity was to spring from Judaism, and graft itself 
upon the Mosaic institutions, there was no need of the Apostles 
distinctly announcing the continuance, under the later dispensa- 
tion, of the sacerdotal system of the former ; since it would be 
taken for granted that, unless formally abrogated, it was to con- 
tinue. So far from this being the case, the contrary is the truth, 
— viz. that the first Christians, whether of Jewish or of heathen 
origin, would, from the peculiar form of organization which / A 

Christian societies assumed, have been likely to take for granted 
that in Christianity there is no proper priesthood, and would have t CA^^-i 
needed an express declaration on the part of their inspired guides ) V 'xvw/J 
to counteract this impression. In other words, the omission by ^ / j r • 



27 












418 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

the Apostles of any such declaration was calculated, if there be 
indeed under the Gospel a visible sacrifice and priesthood, to give 
rise to, and perpetuate, in the minds of Christians, a serious mis- 
understanding. For, as we have seen, the visible constitution of 
Christian societies was derived, not from the Jewish temple, but 
from the synagogue : now the peculiarity of the worship of the 
synagogue, as distinguished from that of the temple, was, that 
there no sacrifice was offered, and consequently no priest was ne- 
cessary to conduct the service. When, therefore, the first Chris- 
tian society at Jerusalem was constituted after the synagogical 
pattern, the Jewish converts would at once conclude, unless the 
contrary were expressly stated, that in its worship no sacrificial 
element (save a purely spiritual one) was intended to be involved. 
No other conclusion could they arrive at as long as they saw 
before their eyes the divinely appointed sacrifices of the temple 
still subsisting, not having as yet been abrogated by the same 
divine lawgiver who appointed them. The idea that a new visible 
priesthood was to be instituted while the old one was in being is 
one which never could have entered the mind of the Jewish con- 
vert; hence, if such a priesthood was really to exist under the 
Gospel, it was absolutely necessary, in order to obviate serious 
error, that this should be distinctly announced by the Apostles ; 
that their converts should be informed that, notwithstanding the 
synagogical form which Christian societies were to assume ; not- 
withstanding the existence of the Levitical priesthood and sacri- 
fices ; similar institutions belong to the Gospel dispensation : that 
their " breaking of bread" was in reality an unbloody sacrifice, 
and their elders and deacons sacrificing priests. Without some 
express declaration of this kind, the first Christians would natur- 
ally, and inevitably, adopt the opinion that their ministers bore 
no other relation to the Christian people than that which the 
elders of the synagogue did to the rest of its members. 

Indeed, the constitution of the first Christian societies furnishes 
a refutation of the sacerdotal theory so decisive and convincing 
that it is worth while to dwell a little longer upon it ; especially 
as the subject has not received the attention which it deserves. 
The temple at Jerusalem bore the same relation to the Jewish 
synagogues scattered throughout the empire which the true Church, 
or mystical body of Christ, does to its visible manifestation, — the 
aggregate of local Christian societies in the world. However much 
synagogues might be multiplied, there was but one temple, one 
divinely appointed priesthood, one altar; and the synagogues, 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 419 

otherwise distinct societies, were connected together by their com- 
mon relation to the temple. The pious Jew, in what part soever 
of the world he might be, regarded the temple, with its priesthood, 
sacrifices, and ritual, as the centre of national unity : with it his 
most hallowed associations were connected, and thither, as we learn 
from the occurrences of the day of Pentecost, he was accustomed 
to repair from the remotest parts of the Roman empire, to cele- 
brate with his brethren the solemn feasts enjoined by the law. 
Now the Jewish temple, as every reader of the New Testament 
knows, has in Christianity no material counterpart: it is the 
Church, the mystical body of Christ, composed of those who are 
in living union with Him, that is now the abode of God's cove- 
nanted presence. Each true Christian is the temple of the Holy 
Ghost, * or rather a living stone in the " spiritual house," f resting 
upon "Jesus Christ the chief corner stone; in whom all the build- 
ing fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the 
Lord." X Hence, there being in Christianity no material temple, 
the visible centre of unity to the local societies which constitute 
collectively the visible Church, there are no visible temple services, 
priesthood, or sacrifice ; whatever there is in the Christian Church 
of a sacerdotal character is of the same nature with the Christian 
temple itself, — that is, it is spiritual and invisible. Christ, the 
only priest of the new temple, is in heaven, not upon earth ; and 
the only sacrifices now offered by the Christian are the spiritual 
ones to which allusion has been already made, which are accept- 
able to God through the mediation of Christ. As the bond of 
union among the Jewish synagogues was the temple at Jerusalem, 
so the bond of union which now connects the various churches of 
Christ is their common relation to the one invisible temple, or 
"blessed company of all faithful people," the unity of which is not 
yet fully manifested, and to its one invisible Priest, who, at the 
right hand of God, ever liveth to make intercession for us. 

It is easy to perceive how this bears upon the question of a 
human priesthood, and visible sacrifice, under the Gospel. The 
sacerdotal element of Judaism, its temple services, have passed 
into Christianity only in a figurative, or rather spiritual, and there- 
fore invisible, form. The temple was the type of the one true 
Church, and the visible type has given place to the unseen reality : 
the synagogue, on the contrary, an institution which possessed 

• " Know ye not that your body " (i, r. as the context shows, each of your bodies) " is the 
temple of the Holy Ghost ?" 1 Cor. vi. 19. 
1 1 PeL ii. 4-9. I Ephes. ii. 20-22. 



420 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

nothing of a sacerdotal character, and with which no covenanted 
privileges were connected, reappeared under the Gospel, literally 
and visibly, in the form of local Christian societies. It seems to 
follow that the temple services of Christianity, whatever they may 
be, belong not to visible churches as such, but to the mystical body 
of Christ, and, like that body, are spiritual, or removed from the 
sphere of sense. 

Quite in accordance with the conclusion thus, by a variety of 
arguments, forced upon us is the circumstance already noticed, — 
that the spiritual gifts of which the New Testament makes men- 
tion in connexion with the ministerial office have no bearing what- 
ever upon sacerdotal functions: they all point to the homiletic 
services of the synagogue. These gifts are either a faculty of teach- 
ing, or an aptitude for governing, or conducting the affairs of a 
Christian society ; which are exactly the duties which devolved 
upon the elders of the synagogue. The chief means of grace, the 
main function of Christian ministers, is, in St. Paul's view, "the 
ministry of the Word:" but, under a sacerdotal system, — as, for 
instance, that of the Church of Kome, — the teacher always, and 
necessarily, occupies, as compared with the priest and the sacrifice, 
a subordinate place. Under the law, it was no part of the priestly 
office to teach; no instructions upon that head are found in the 
portions of the Pentateuch which describe sacerdotal functions : it 
is well known, indeed, that the scribes, whose peculiar office it was 
to expound the law, belonged indiscriminately to all the tribes, 
though it is probable that the greater part of them were Levites. 
Sacrifice and intercession were the proper functions of the priest ; 
teaching, admonishing, administering discipline, those of the Jew- 
ish elder : it is needless to ask, to which of these offices does that 
of the Christian minister, as described by St. Paul, bear the greatest 
resemblance. 

The relation which the synagogue bore to the temple might lead 
to several reflections on the nature of the Christian church, which 
this is not the place to pursue. For example, we hence learn that 
under the Gospel no connexion exists between any form of ecclesi- 
astical polity and the grace of Christ's Spirit. For ecclesiastical 
polity corresponds with the arrangements of the synagogue, to 
which, as being of human institution, no blessings were, by cove- 
nant, attached : the lustrations, and propitiatory sacrifices, belong- 
ing to the temple ritual. So, under the Gospel, the forgiveness of 
sins, and sanctifying grace, flow not from union with a Christian 
synagogue, — i. e. a visible church, — but from incorporation in the 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 421 

spiritual temple, — r tlie body of Christ, — to the members of which, 
covenanted grace is conveyed through its glorified High Priest, 
Christ Jesus : a truth which, notwithstanding the ambiguity of his 
language, Augustin seems to have intended to express, when he 
says, " It is the rock, the dove, unity, that retains and remits sins. 
But this unity exists only in the good, whether they be advanced 
Christians, or only beginners in the spiritual life." * 

The historical connexion between the church and the synagogue 
serves also to explain a circumstance which it is not uncommon to 
see urged in defence of the sacerdotal system, — viz. that the first 
Christians are found, apparently with the approbation, or permis- 
sion, of the Apostles, frequenting the ordinances of the Jewish 
temple. Our information upon this point is too scanty to enable 
us to determine with certainty to what extent the Jewish converts 
conceived themselves bound by the legal enactments : admitting, 
however (and from various passages it seems the most probable 
supposition),! that they professed obedience to the whole law, it 
by no means follows that this is a warrant for the introduction of 
a human priesthood under the Gospel. " Had there been more 
than this," a recent writer urges, "in the Jewish ritual, how could 
the Apostles have continued to observe it ? Had it interfered 
with the work of Christ, it would not have been enough to leave 
it to die away under the light of the Gospel. It would not have 
been sufficient for St. PauJ to teach men not to trust ; he must 
have forbidden any to practise it." X The reply at once suggests 
itself: — If the existence of the Jewish ritual was not incompatible 
with the principles of the Gospel, why was it suffered to die away 
at all ? If a human priesthood and a visible sacrifice were to form 
constituent elements of the Christian, as they did of the Jewish, 
dispensation, why should not the ancient institutions have been 
continued ? If Christian ministers are priests in the same sense 
in which the Jewish were, and the eucharist is as real a sacrifice 
as the paschal lamb, no necessity is apparent for the total abroga- 

* De Bap. Cont. Don. L. iii. s. 23. If we may understand Augustin as affirming, not 
that " the dove," — i. e. the body of Christ — itself forgives sins, but that they who are in union 
with the dove have their sins forgiven, the sentiment is perfectly Scriptural. 

t The Jewish believers are described by SL James (Acts, xxi. 20.) as " zealous of the law," 
from which it is reasonable to suppose that they not only practised circumcision, but as- 
sisted at the legal sacrifices. Certain it is that the vow which St. Paul took upon himscli 
(Acts, xviii. 18.) required for its completion the offering of sacrifices in the temple; which 
accounts for the Apostle's haste to be at Jerusalem in time for the feast. Compare Acts, 
xxi. 26. 

JWilbjrforce, Incarnation, <tc. p. 383. 



422 CHUECH OF CHRIST. 

lion of the ancient economy. But not to press this : — the question 
is, not what compliances with the precepts of the law the Apostles 
may, in the case of Jewish converts, have either permitted, or 
sanctioned, but whether they ever tolerated the introduction of 
Jewish practices or institutions into Christianity as essential parts 
of the new dispensation ? For nothing is easier to account for 
than the circumstance of which we are now speaking. The fact 
has been already noticed, as highly significant of the nature of 
the Gospel, that the first converts, the Apostles themselves in- 
cluded, were far from supposing that in becoming Christians they 
had ceased to be Jews, or were free to neglect the ordinances of 
the law. The visible separation of the two economies was effected 
by a slow and gradual process, which was not complete until the 
destruction of Jerusalem ; and it was altogether foreign from the 
spirit in which the Apostles regulated the affairs of the church 
rudely to disturb old associations where they did not infringe any 
of the essential principles of the Gospel. The great Apostle of the 
Gentiles himself, to whom of all the inspired college was vouch- 
safed the clearest insight into the distinction between the Law and 
the Gospel, professed it to be his rule of action, where it was a 
question of expediency merely, unto the Jews to become as a Jew ; 
took upon himself vows ; and even circumcised Timothy his be- 
loved son in the faith. If it be asked when did the Apostles 
consider that the observance of the Jewish rites was incompatible 
with a saving interest in Christ? the answer is, whenever such 
observance was made essential to salvation,— that is, was formally 
incorporated in the Christian scheme. Thus the same Apostle 
who, as a matter of expediency, circumcised Timothy denounced 
the Galatian notions upon that point as destructive of the integrity 
of the Gospel. 

It is in this light we are to regard the observance of the 
Jewish ritual by the first converts. Viewed as a matter of expe- 
diency, or as a compliance with the regulations of a divine law 
which had not yet been abrogated, there was nothing in their 
practice as regards this point incompatible with the religion of 
Christ. Christianity tolerates many things — slavery for example, 
— which it does not acknowledge to be part and parcel of itself; 
tolerates them as long as they do not claim a place in the sanctu- 
ary itself of the Gospel. The moment that a claim of this kind 
is advanced, the Gospel repels it, jealously guarding its own essen- 
tial principles from foreign admixture. Everything turns upon 
the spirit, and intention, in which the Jewish converts frequented 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 423 

the temple. As long as they did so merely because they believed 
themselves bound to obey the law, the Apostles might well per- 
mit a harmless error of this kind to be corrected by the course of 
Providential events : but the case, we may be sure, would have 
been very different had the first converts observed the Levitical 
ritual on the ground that it was essential to salvation, — had they 
avowedly regarded it, as the Jew had hitherto rightly regarded it, 
as the covenanted means of access to God. Had any such notion 
as this been connected with the temple sacrifices, the Apostle who 
so severely denounced the Galatian error would, beyond all doubt, 
have equally pronounced this analogous one to be inconsistent 
with right apprehensions of the Gospel. The circumstance, then, 
that the Apostles permitted their converts to observe the law 
proves nothing, as regards the question before us : what should 
have been proved, or at least made probable, is, that they would, 
in like manner, have made no opposition to the formal introduction 
of the Jewish sacerdotal system into the Gospel. The exclusive 
priesthood of Christ, and the perfection of His sacrifice, might well 
be compatible with the temporary observance of the Jewish ritual, 
which had waxed old, and was ready to vanish away ; what re- 
mains to be proved is that they are also compatible with a Christian 
priesthood and sacrifice ; a human priesthood, and a real sacrifice, 
regarded as part and parcel of Christianity itself. * 

The abundance and cogency of the foregoing general presump- 
tions against the proper priesthood of Christian ministers make it 
the less necessary to discuss at any length the passages of Scrip- 
ture on which the sacerdotal theory is made to rest. To omit all 

* While, for the reasons given in the text, we must protest against the transformation of 
the Christian ministry into a priesthood, and of Christian worship into a system of symbol- 
ism such as that of the Jewish ritual, we may regret that in some of the reformed churches 
the contrary extreme was fallen into, and not only was the application of art to Christian 
purposes pronounced unlawful, but the preaching of the Word assumed the same place 
which in the Romish Church the mass occupies, — viz. one of disproportionate importance. 
Hence the custom of celebrating the Eucharist only twice or thrice in the year. A system 
of symbolism — such as portioning out the parts of a cathedrel to represent particular facts 
in the economy of grace, or setting apart one part of it as more holy than another — can never 
be rendered compatible with the principles of the Gospel, for it implies that He in whom 
grace and truth reside is not yet manifested: the Jewish ritual was necessarily a symbolical 
one because Christ was not yet come. Now that He has come, shadow and symbol have dis- 
appeared. Thi9, however, is a very different thing from the application of art to the pur- 
poses of Christian worship, which is not only allowable, but laudable. So as regards the Eu 
oharist; the reaction from Romanism has led to an undue depreciation of this holy ordi- 
nance. How much is it to be wished that the celebration of it in our own church, instead 
of being thrust into a corner at the end of a liturgy, in itself too lengthened, and after the 
great mass of the congregation has retired, should form a service by itself, and take place, 
if possible weekly, before the assembled people. 



424 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

notice of them, however, would be to leave the present inquiry 
incomplete, and might be considered as a tacit acknowledgement 
that they do not, on ' protestant principles, admit of a satisfactory 
interpretation. 

To the question, When were the Apostles, the first link in the 
chain of ministerial succession, consecrated priests ; the Komish 
formularies, by way of reply, remind us that at the last supper 
Christ delivered to them the bread and wine, saying " Do this in 
remembrance of me;"* by which act, and words, of our Lord, it 
is said, they became invested with a sacerdotal character, which 
has descended to their successors. "Where this conclusion is not 
at once drawn, our attention is nevertheless directed to the fact 
that Christ, in instituting this holy ordinance, committed the cele- 
bration of it, not to the whole body of believers but, to the Apos- 
tles only. The same restriction, it is observed, applies to the bap- 
tismal commission, Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. The inferences are, first, 
that, while they lived, none but the Apostles, or they to whom 
the Apostles gave authority, had a right to administer the sacra- 
ments ; secondly, that none but the successors of the Apostles, or 
those commissioned by them, possess a similar right now ; and, 
thirdly, that where this rule is violated, the sin of Korah is com- 
mitted, and the sacraments fail to convey covenanted grace to the 
receivers. In confirmation of the theory we are referred to 1 Cor. 
iv. 1., where Christian ministers are described as " stewards of the 
mysteries of God," dispensers, as the passage is interpreted, of the 
Sacraments. 

For the power of absolution, the remaining sacerdotal function, 
the well-known passages are cited in which our Lord delivered 
the "keys of the kingdom of heaven," with power to bind and 
loose, first to Peter singly, and then to all the Apostles ; and 
especially that in which He is recorded, after His resurrection, to 
have imparted the Holy Ghost to the eleven, with power to remit 
and retain sins. (Matt. xvi. 19. and xviii. 18.; John, xx. 21 — 23.) 

Whether these passages are sufficient to sustain the vast super- 
structure which is raised upon them may be left to the decision 

*It is painful to see a writer like Bishop Taylor using this argument to establish a quasi 
human priesthood under the Gospel. " Hoc facite, — this do in remembrance of me. This 
cannot but relate to 'accepit, gratias egit, fregit, distribuit ; hoo facite.' Here was no man- 
ducation expressed, and therefore ' hoc facite' concerns the Apostles in the capacity of 
ministers; not as receivers, but as consecrators and givers" &c. — Divine Institution of the 
Office Ministerial, s. 5, 4. It is hard to say which has been productive of greater damage to 
the cause of truth, the opposition of dissent to the Church of England, or the reaction on 
tbo part of the church produced by that opposition. 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 425 

of the intelligent reader of Scripture : little more will here be offered 
than a few remarks on the position of the Apostles both before 
and after Christ's resurrection, a point which is of great import- 
ance in deciding upon the interpretation to be put on His addresses 
to them. 

The Apostles, then, appear, in our Lord's discourses with them, 
in a threefold point of view : first, as Apostles, in the strict sense 
of the word, — that is, as witnesses of Christ's resurrection and 
inspired founders of the Church ; — secondly, as representa- 
tives of the Christian ministry in general ; and, thirdly, as repre- 
sentatives of the Church at large. Unless we carefully distinguish 
between the different characters under which the Apostles are 
thus addressed, we shall be liable to put a wrong construction 
upon our Lord's expressions in reference to them. 

Thus, to select one instance out of many, it is obvious that in 
many parts of the concluding discourse of our Lord, recorded by 
St. John, the Apostles are addressed, neither specially as Apostles, 
nor even as Christian ministers, but, simply as believers in Christ, 
as representatives of the Church in general. For the promise of 
access to the Father through the Son (John, xiv. 13.) ; of the Com- 
forter to abide with them forever (v. 16.); of the indwelling of 
Christ in their hearts (v. 23.) : the privilege of being branches in 
the true vine (c. xv. 1.); of being chosen by Christ (v. 16.); of 
having a place prepared for them in the mansions of glory 
(c. xiv. 1.) : belong evidently, not to the Apostles, or their suc- 
cessors in the ministry, alone, but to the whole Church. That 
our Lord in these discourses regarded the Apostles as representa- 
tives of the body of true believers in every age is clear from the 
words of the concluding prayer: — " neither pray I for these alone, 
but for them also which shall believe* on me through their word." 
(c. xvii. 20.) 

It is, however, equally clear that certain parts of this same 
address relate to the eleven in their character of Apostles, as 
distinguished from all other Christians. Of this kind are the 
promises of plenary inspiration (chaps, xiv. 26., xvi. 13), and the 
allusions to the office which they were to discharge as witnesses 
of Christ's resurrection (chaps, xv. 27., xvi. 16.). 

On the other hand, in the instructions given by our Lord to 
the Apostles when sending them forth on their temporary mission 
among the cities of Israel, the twelve seem to be addressed simply 
as ministers of Christ; which is still more clearly the case in 
Luke, xii. 31 — 48., where of a general precept concerning Chris- 



426 church of christ. 

tian watchfulness a special application is made to the Apostles as 
rulers and stewards of the household. The admonition contained 
in these verses is clearly applicable, not to the Apostles only, but, 
to the ministers of Christ in every age. 

Once more in Matt. xix. 27 — 30., the twelve are addressed 
partly as representatives of the true Church, and partly as Apos- 
tles in the proper sense of the word. For in reply to Peter's 
statement that he and his colleagues had left all to follow him, 
our Lord declares, first, that all who imitated their example should 
receive an ample reward, and then, that the Apostles in particular 
should "sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of 
Israel." 

From these examples, which might be multiplied, it will be 
evident that to draw conclusions from any particular promise 
given to the Apostles, or any transactions in which they may 
have been concerned, without carefully examining in what capacity 
they are addressed, is the ready way to involve the whole subject 
in confusion. As a matter of biblical exposition, nothing can be 
more crude than to argue that because on a given occasion Christ 
conferred certain powers and privileges upon the Apostles, these 
powers and privileges exist now in the Church. Each passage of 
this kind must be submitted to a careful scrutiny ; times and 
circumstances must be taken into account ; and, in short, that 
humble diligence in searching the Scriptures must be exercised 
which, conjoined with a single eye to truth, is indispensable to 
our being led into truth. 

Applying this principle of interpretation to the passages just 
mentioned, let us examine what can be really inferred from each. 
On the evening preceding His crucifixion, our Lord, in company 
with the Apostles, celebrated the feast of the passover, and took 
occasion to consecrate a portion of its ritual to be in all ages a 
solemn memorial of His body given, and His blood shed, for the 
sins of the world. Delivering to them the bread, He said, " Take, 
eat, this is my body : this do" (viz. eat, not sacrifice) "in remem- 
brance of me." In like manner he gave them the cup, saying, 
" Drink ye all of this ; for this is my blood of the New Testament 
which is shed for you, and for many for the remission of sins." 
The notion that by these words of Christ the Apostles were con- 
secrated priests, it is not worth while to spend time in refuting : 
the only question that can arise is, in what capacity are they to 
be considered as addressed? Nothing, however, can be clearer 
than that here the Apostles are regarded, neither as Apostles 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 427 

properly so called, nor as Christian ministers in general, but, as 
representatives of the true Church in every age. Our Lord was 
not giving directions how, or by whom, an ordinance, previously 
instituted, was to be administered, but for the first time instituting 
the ordinance itself, which is one that belongs indiscriminately to 
all Christians ; and he instituted it in the persons of the Apostles, 
not as inspired messengers of the Spirit, or as ministers of Christ, 
but simply as believers. If the twelve are not in this passage to 
be thus regarded, the conclusion that follows is, not merely that 
to them alone (their successors in the ministry included) the 
administration of the sacred rite was committed, but that they 
alone were entitled to partake of it. To the proper mode of 
administering the ordinance the words of institution contain not 
the slightest reference ; the reception of it (" Take, eat ; drink ye 
all of this ") is what is enjoined upon the Apostles : and nothing 
can be more arbitrary, if stress is to be laid upon the fact that the 
Apostles only were present when it was instituted, than to stop 
short at the inference that upon them alone the power of adminis- 
tration was conferred, when, by reasoning precisely similar, it 
might be made further to appear that to them alone the privilege 
of reception was confined. We cannot in this way manage our 
premises, making them prove as much as we wish, and no more. 

With the baptismal commission the case is somewhat different. 
" All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, 
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to 
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I 
am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." These last 
words, indeed, make it plain that the charge is not given to the 
eleven as the inspired founders of the Church, for the apostolate, 
in the proper sense of the word, was not to continue unto the end 
of the world. To the remarks already made upon this point little 
need here be added. A perpetual infallible tribunal — such as that 
which the Apostles while they were upon earth constituted — 
would be inconsistent with a spiritual dispensation like that of the 
Gospel, both as localizing what is meant to be universal, and as 
unalterably fixing details of practice which had better be left free. 
As there is under the Gospel no local temple, or place with which 
the special presence of God is connected, so, and for the same 
reason, the Ch'irch possesses no standing living oracle, whether 
an individual, or a body of men, empowered to deliver infallible 
decisions upon each debated point of doctrine or practice, as it 



428 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

may arise. In place of such a tribunal, the operation of which 
would in a short time transform the Gospel into a system like that 
of Moses, there has been vouchsafed to the Church an inspired 
record, which, like its divine Author, recognizes no local limits, 
and which professes to do no more for our guidance than enunciate 
general principles suited to every clime and age. In short, the 
same reasons which made it expedient that Christ should leave the 
world, committing the administration of His Church to the Spirit, 
apply with equal force against the continuance of a living aposto- 
late, the word being understood in its full and proper meaning. 

This interpretation of the passage being set aside as untenable, 
we may either, with Chrysostom, * regard the promise of Christ 
as given to the Church at large, then represented in the Apostles, 
or we may suppose that, while taken in its full extent, it belongs 
to the whole Church, it yet has a particular reference to the eleven, 
not, however, as Apostles, but as representatives of the Christian 
ministry in general, which, indeed, seems to be the true applica- 
tion of the passage. Thus understood, it will signify that, while 
Christ is present with all His people (John, xiv. 23.), He is so in 
a more especial manner with His ministers, to whom, as long as 
their teaching coincides with that of the Apostles, His divine co- 
operation is assured to the end of time. But where is there in the 
passage the slightest hint of the validity of baptism being depend- 
ent upon the ecclesiastical position of the persons who are to 
administer it ? Where is the divine law confining the admistra- 
tion of the ordinance to the Apostles, and those upon whom the 
Apostles should devolve a portion of their commission? That 
our Lord here appears to have contemplated, not this or that order 
of Christian ministers, but, His ministers in general, as the proper 
persons, first to instruct candidates for baptism, and then to ad- 
minister the ordinance, may be admitted : but these are functions 
which common sense, independently of any divine direction, would 
assign to the pastors of each Church. 

In short, no passage can be produced from the New Testament 
in which the administration of the Sacraments is, by a divine law, 
restricted to the Apostles or their delegates, or the grace of these 
ordinances made dependent upon the persons of the administrators. 
Nowhere are the Apostles found claiming the exclusive right to 
baptize, or to consecrate 'the Eucharist. They that gladly received 
Peter's word were baptized;! by whom we are not informed. 
Philip, the deacon, baptized the eunuch ; that he received from the 

• See above, p. 200. t Acts, H. 41. 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 429 

Apostles a formal commission to do so is not told us. * Ananias, 
in all probability a layman, appears to have baptized St. Paul. 
Peter, beholding the evidences of a living faith in Cornelius and 
his friends, " commanded them to be baptized;" whether by him- 
self or others, is left undetermined, f St. Paul declares that Christ 
sent him, not to baptize, but, to preach the Gospel ; a declaration 
which, to say the least, negatives the supposition of its being the 
peculiar function of the Apostles to administer this sacrament. 
With respect to the Eucharist, the notices of Scripture are still 
more scanty and defective ; or, rather, there is not a particle of 
evidence to prove that the administration of it was restricted to 
the Apostles, or those whom they appointed to minister in the 
Church. The first believers brake "bread from house to house," 
" came together on the first day of the week to break bread ; " % 
but who it was that consecrated the elements ; what the form of 
consecration was, or whether there was any such form ; by whom 
the consecrated bread and wine were delivered to the people ; upon 
these, and the like points, which, according to the Church theory, 
ought to have been defined with the utmost exactness, Scripture 
observes a profound silence. The only thing essential to the 
validity of the sacrament appears to have been the presence of 
Christ in the midst of His people : the true consecrating principle 
in the holy ordinance was the living faith of those who partook 
of it. To "make the Sacraments "§ was, as far as we can see, the 
prerogative, not of a sacerdotal order upon earth, but of Him from 
whom alone all ordinances derive their virtue. St. Paul, in one 
passage, || treats at some length of the sacrament of the Lord's 
supper, its import, and the proper mode of celebrating it: upon 
the question, however, what is necessary to make the ordinance 
valid ? he also is silent. It appears to have been then the custom 
to ask a blessing upon the elements ; but nothing can be more in- 
determinate than the manner in which the Apostle alludes to this 
custom : " the cup of blessing which we bless ; the bread which 
we break : " T from whose lips the blessing proceeded is left to us 
to conjecture. If no lengthened observations are needed upon the 
passage in which St. Paul describes himself and his fellow Apos- 
tles as " stewards of the mysteries of God," it is because every 
intelligent reader of Scripture is aware, that by the word "mys- 

•Acts, viii. 38. fActs, ix. 18. 

X Acts, ii. 46. ; xx. 7. 

I Conficere sacramentum : tho usual expression employed by Romish writers. 

II Cor. xi. 17-34. f 1 Cor. x. 16. 



430 CHURCH OF CHEIST. 

tery," as used by St. Paul, is invariably meant a doctrine, hitherto 
hidden, but now revealed : never an ordinance : * so that the pas- 
sage merely affirms of Christian ministers, that they are stewards, 
or dispensers, of the truths of the Gospel, as indeed the require- 
ment that they be "faithful" is of itself sufficient to prove. 

Before quitting this point, it may be worth our while to mark 
the different fate which, in the lapse of time, the two sacraments 
experienced. By the Donatist controversy the principle was 
established, that baptism, even when administered by those not in 
communion with the Church, if only the word and the element had 
been present, was so far valid as that it was not to be repeated in 
the case of those who, having been thus baptized in schism, be- 
came reconciled to the Church. It was argued by Augustin, most 
conclusively, that the sacrament is Christ's, not his who adminis- 
ters it ; and derives its virtue from the sacred name in which it 
is administered. This was, in effect, disconnecting the validity of 
the ordinance from the person of the administrator ; for though it 
was still maintained that the recipient, as long as he continued in 
a state of schism, derived no saving benefit from his baptism, still 
the ordinance itself was pronounced valid, and, as such, was not 
to be repeated. In accordance with this principle, the Eomish 
Church, as is well known, permits, in cases of necessity, laymen, 
and even women, to baptize ; and even should the sacrament have 
been administered by a Jew or a pagan, acknowledges its validity, 
provided matter, form, and due intention, were present, f The 
Eucharist, on the contrary, has always been most jealously guard- 
ed from the profanation of lay hands ; the consecration of it by an 
unordained person being deemed absolutely null and void. Yet, 
if there is any difference in Scripture, as regards this point, be- 
tween the two sacraments, baptism is the one which has more the 
appearance of being restricted ; Matt, xxviii. 19. affording some 
ground for the assertion that the Apostles only, as ministers of 
Christ, received authority to baptize, while for such a limitation 
in reference to the other sacrament no scriptural evidence at all 
can be produced. But it is a characteristic of the Church system 

* The passage, " this is a great mystery " (Ephes. v. 32.), translated by the vulgate sacra- 
mentum hoc magnum est, is no exception to the rule : for the "mystery " is, not the ordi- 
nance itself of marriage, but St. Paul's application of Gen. ii. 24., — "for this cause shall 
a man leave his father" &c., — to illustrate the union of Christ and His Church : an applica- 
tion of the passage hitherto unthought of. 

t Bellarm. De Bap. L. i. c. 7. 



-f 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 431 

to be most peremptory and exclusive in its decisions where Scrip- 
ture supplies the slenderest foundation for them. 

It must be again and again repeated that, in contending against 
the notion that the Sacraments owe their validity to their being 
administered by a priestly caste, in whose hands alone they con- 
vey covenanted grace, the Protestant by no means infringes the 
great principle, that "all things be done decently and in order." 
Order in Christian assemblies is a divine law ; and the only one 
that is laid down for the guidance of Christians. In obedience to 
it, it is obvious that some persons must be set apart to administer 
the Sacraments; and who so fit for this office as they upon whom 
the duty devolves of preparing candidates for those ordinances, 
and who are to act as the organs of the Church in the exercise of 
discipline ? Eeason dictates that the ministers of the Word should 
also be the ministers of the Sacraments : so it was probably from 
the first; so certainly it is now in most Christian assemblies. As 
a question of order, this rule stands on its own sufficient ground, 
and must not be needlessly infringed. But to make it rest on 
grounds of order does not satisfy the advocates of the Church 
system : it must be transformed into a divine law, as peremptory 
as that which, under the old dispensation, made the offering of 
sacrifice the exclusive function of the priesthood. " There is no 
reason to establish the right of men, without succession from the 
Apostles, to administer the Holy Eucharist, which will not justify 
the taking away of the cup : " * thus it is that an unscriptural 
theory leads even pious men to hazard statements which will not 
bear a moment's investigation; statements which are rendered 
needless when the sacerdotal system which they are intended to 
sustain itself dissolves before the full beams of Gospel truth.f 

* Manning, Unity, &c p. 325. 

t It wag only by degrees that the dogma of the validity of the Sacraments being depend- 
ent upon the person of the administrator established itself in the Church; the free evan- 
gelical view continued for a long time to be held and taught by writers of great note. 
Tn the following passage of Tertullian (De Baptismo, c. 17.) it is very strongly expressed: 
— "Dandi quidein habet jus summus sacerdos, qui est episcopus, dehine presbyteri et dia- 
coni, non tamen sine episcopi auctoritate, propter ecclesiae honorem, quo salvo, salva pax 
est. Alioquin etiam laicis jus est; quod enim ex aequo accipitur, ex aequo dari potest: 
nisi episcopi jam, aut presbyteri, aut diaconi vocantur, discentes. Domini sermo non 
debet abscondi ab ullo. Proinde et baptismus, aequo Dei census, ab omnibus exerceri 
potest; sed quanto magis laicis disciplina verecundiae et modestiao incumbit?" Very 
different is the language of the Apostolical Constitutions :— 'ftj ovv ovk t\v i\6v dWoyevfi, ur> 
Svra AeuirTjv, npootviytcai r«, >} irpootkQclv r<V to duo-taorfiptov avcv tov itpcwj, ovrot ical vptis <* v cv 

tov Ittktk&itov liTficv notciTC wj yap b TaovX, avt.v tov 2a/ioufjX, irpootvcyicaf, 

finvotV) 5ti jitparaiotTai ooi' ovtcj na't Traj AaiVdj vfrcv tov tcptojs iirtTiXcJv r«, parma irovtt. — Lib. 
ii. o. 27. 



432 church of christ. 

The same discriminating test will be of service in enabling us 
to ascertain the true meaning of the passages from which the 
existence of a power in Christian ministers to remit or retain sins 
has been inferred. These are, as is well known, three in number : 
— The promise to Peter, " I will give unto thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall 
be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, 
shall be loosed in heaven : " the same repeated to all the Apostles, 
" whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; 
and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven : " 
and the charge given by Christ, after his resurrection, to the 
assembled eleven, "He breathed on them and said, Receive ye 
the Holy Ghost. Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted 
unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." * 
The conclusion founded upon them is, that there is vested in 
Christian ministers, as successors of the Apostles, a power, not 
merely of pronouncing that sin is, in the case of the penitent 
believer, forgiven, but, of potentially conveying, or withholding, 
forgiveness; sacerdotal absolution being the appointed means 
through which remission of sins committed after baptism is con- 
ferred, and the priest, ministerially it is true, but still in a real 
sense, holding the keys of the kingdom of heaven, which he opens 
or shuts as to him may seem good. 

It is no conclusive argument against this doctrine, which delivers 
the lay members of Christ's body completely into the power of 
the priesthood, that it places Christians under a yoke incomparably 
more oppressive than that which was laid upon the stiff-necked 
people of the old covenant, inasmuch as the Jewish priest, though 
the appointed channel of communication between God and man, 
had no authority either to remit or retain sins ; if the penitential 
institute, of which sacerdotal absolution is part, be really an 
appointment of Christ, we must bow in submission to the divine 
enactment. Only we may fairly require that the Scriptural proof 
of such a power having been committed to the clergy shall be 
clear and unquestionable. 

Now the first thing that strikes us, on a survey of the passages 
in question, is, that, whatever may be gathered from them respect- 
ing the prerogatives of the Apostles, they contain no hint whatever 
of the continued existence of Apostolic powers in the Church. 
That the existing Christian ministry, or any particular order of it> 

• Matt. xvi. 19. Ibid, xviii. 18. John, xx. 21-23. 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 433 

inherits the authority given to the Apostles to bind and loose, to 
remit or retain sins; — this, the important link in the chain of 
argument, can never be supplied from these passages taken by 
themselves. For aught that appears in the words of Christ, the 
power which He conveyed to the Apostolic body may have been 
a personal privilege, which was to cease with its first possessors. 
The contrast in this respect between it and the baptismal commis- 
sion is very remarkable : while the power of binding and loosing, 
remitting and retaining sins is unaccompanied by any declaration 
indicating that it was to continue in the Church, the ordinary 
duties of the Christian ministry, to teach and to baptize, though in 
the first instance charged upon the Apostles alone, are shown to 
be of perpetual use by the concluding promise, " Lo, I am with 
you alway, even unto the end of the world." So strongly, indeed, 
has this omission in the first-mentioned passages been felt that, as 
a learned writer has recently observed, * the attempt is not unfre- 
quently made to supply it by tacking on to the power of binding 
and loosing, &c, the promise in Matt, xxviii. of Christ's perpetual 
presence, though no warrant whatever exists for so doing, the two 
commissions evidently having nothing in common, either as 
regards time or matter. 

And indeed, when we proceed to examine the literal purport 
of the passages, it becomes evident that the powers which Christ 
here actually conferred upon the Apostles never existed, in their 
fulness and integrity, in any save the inspired founders of the 
Church. For the purposes of interpretation, the two first passages 
may be considered as one, the power of binding and loosing, 
which in the former of them is conferred upon Peter alone, being, 
in the latter, bestowed equally upon all the Apostles. True it is 
that the address of Christ to Peter (Matt. xvi. 19.) is, in its form, 
strictly personal, and contains predictive matter which had its ac- 
complishment in the ministry of that Apostle only. Thus, for 
example, Peter may, in an especial sense, be said to have held the 
keys of the kingdom of heaven, inasmuch as he it was who actu- 
ally opened the door of salvation to all believers, Gentiles as well 
as Jews. He was the first to announce, on the day of Pentecost, 
to his Jewish brethren, that to them first the promise of forgive- 
ness of sin through the same Jesus whom they had crucified, 
appertained ; and he also was the first to admit in the person of 
Cornelius believing Gentiles into the fold of Christ. But in the 

•Benson, Discourses on the Powers of the Clergy, p. 32. 
28 



434 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

rest of the address, we cannot but suppose that he is regarded as 
the representative of the Apostolic college, whose faith expressed 
itself in his memorable confession, " Thou art the Christ, the Son 
of the living God ; " the ready zeal of Peter leading him on this 
occasion, as on many others, to anticipate his brethren in the ex- 
pression of sentiments which they all equally felt. For it is diffi- 
cult to draw an essential line of distinction between the authority 
given to Peter to bind and loose, and the same authority conferred 
subsequently by Christ upon all the Apostles. A special applica- 
tion indeed of this general power appears to be contemplated in 
Matt, xviii. 18. — viz. to enforce the decisions of the congregation, 
or local church, in cases of civil injury committed by one Chris- 
tian against another ; but the power itself, as we may gather from 
the similarity of the expression, was in both cases essentially the 
same. 

What, then, are we to understand by this privilege ? Plainly a 
plenary authority to make such regulations, either by abrogating 
ancient rules or imposing new ones, as should from time to time 
seem necessary for the well being of Christ's church. The terms 
" binding" and "loosing" are known to have been in common use 
among the Jews, in the signification of enacting, or abrogating, 
regulations of discipline ; and in this sense they are here used by 
oar Lord. Thus Peter " bound," or enacted a binding regulation, 
when he commanded Cornelius, the first believing Gentile, to be 
baptized, thus extending the initiatory ordinance of the Gospel to 
a case which had not previously arisen; and he "loosed," or did 
away with the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, when he 
admitted the same Cornelius to equal privileges with the Jewish 
converts, without imposing upon him the rite of circumcision. The 
same Apostle, not however singly, but in conjunction with James 
and the rest of the Apostles then present at Jerusalem, "loosed," 
or released, the Gentile converts from the yoke of the Mosaic law : 
indeed the proceedings of the Apostolic council referred to are the 
best, and a sufficient, commentary upon our Lord's words. In like 
manner, whatever appointments of polity, or church discipline, or 
Christian worship, the Apostles may have made, they made in vir- 
tue of the general authority conferred upon them by Christ to 
bind and to loose, that is, to legislate for Christian societies. 

It follows, then, in the first place, that the Apostolic privilege 
of which we are speaking had no reference whatever to sacerdotal 
absolution, or indeed in any way to the forgiveness of sins. With 
the subject of absolution these passages have no imaginable con- 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 435 

aexion : they refer to a power altogether different. As Lightfoot 
remarks, it is not persons, but things, which the Apostles were em- 
powered to bind and loose; the form of the expression being in 
both passages so framed as to apply to the latter only. "Binding 
and loosing, in our Saviour's sense, and in the Jews' sense, from 
whose use he taketh the phrase, is of things and not of persons ; 
for Christ saith to Peter, o lav drjcr^g, and o lav Xvarig] o and not 
ov; 'whatsoever' thou bindest, and not 'whomsoever;' and to the 
other Apostles oca lav d/^^rs, Matt, xviii, 18. ; oaa not ooovg ' what- 
soever things,' and not 'whatsoever persons.' ' , * 

And, secondly, in whatever measure we may suppose this 
Apostolic authority to have been inherited by the Church, it is 
obvious that, in its proper integrity, it was a peculiar privilege of 
the Apostles. To pronounce authoritative decisions on points of 
Christian practice, decisions which were to be ratified in heaven, 
has never been the prerogative of any uninspired man or set of 
men : for the promise manifestly implies a supernatural preserva- 
tion from error. When our Lord declared that whatever his 
Apostles should bind and loose upon earth should be bound and 
loosed in heaven, He must be supposed to have contemplated them 
as those to whom the additional promise was given, that the Spirit 
should lead them into all truth. 

With these abatements, the power of binding and loosing may 
be regarded as still existing in the Church. That portion of the 
original authority which we may believe to have descended to the 
Church, is the right of every Christian society to make such by- 
laws and regulations as from time to time shall seem expedient, 
provided always that such regulations do not contravene the spirit 
of the apostolic institutions recorded in Scripture ; and especially 
the right of enforcing its decrees by the penalty of excommunica- 
tion. For if in Matt. xvi. 19. Peter is addressed as the represent- 
ative of the apostolic college, in Matt, xviii. 18. the Apostles are 
still more manifestly addressed as the representatives of the Church 
of every age. " If he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the 
Church ; but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto 
thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, 
whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and 
whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;" — 
nothing can be clearer than that the company of the Apostles is 
here regarded as the type, not of the Christian ministry in par- 

• Lightfoot, Commentary on Acts. Compare his Heb. Exercit. on Matt. xvi. 19. 



436 CHURCH OF CHRIST, 

ticular, but of local Christian societies ; upon which, in the persons 
of the Apostles, was thus conferred by Christ the power of exer- 
cising discipline, with the assurance that, when exercised agreeably 
to Apostolic precedent, it should receive the divine sanction. The 
case supposed in Matt, xviii. 18. is, not that of a sin against God, 
but of a civil injury inflicted by one Christian upon another ; and 
a full illustration of the passage is furnished by St. Paul's reproof 
of the Corinthian converts for suing each other in the heathen 
courts of law, instead of settling their differences before a tribunal 
of their own; which tribunal the Apostle nowhere directs to be 
composed of clerical persons only. (1 Cor. vi. 5.) Indeed, where, 
as in Christian countries, the civil magistracy is professedly Chris- 
tian, the Apostle's prohibition must be considered as revoked. 

Of a very different nature is the authority to remit and retain 
sins bestowed upon the Apostles by Christ after His resurrection. 
Our Lord's words are too express and plain, to permit us to inter- 
pret them, as has been done, to signify merely a commission to 
preach the Gospel, or to admit men by baptism into the visible 
church. Whatever secondary sense the passage may bear, the 
power originally given to the Apostles by Christ, when "He 
breathed upon them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost," cannot 
be supposed to be any other than that of authoritatively pronounc- 
ing within the pale of the Christian community the sins of certain 
persons to be remitted, and of certain others to be retained, or not 
forgiven. This is placed beyond doubt both by the comparison 
which Christ institutes between his own mission by the Father, 
and the mission of the Apostles by himself; and by his bestowing 
upon them, at the same time, that gift of the Spirit which alone 
could enable them to discharge an office so unfit to be intrusted to 
men unassisted by supernatural grace. Our Lord's address, then, 
may be thus paraphrased : — "As the Father hath sent me with a 
delegated authority to pronounce upon earth sins forgiven" (a 
power which Christ did actually claim and exercise, when He said 
to the sick of the palsy, " Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be for- 
given thee,") " so send I you, with a similarly delegated power, and 
that you may be qualified for the exercise of it, I bestow upon you 
a special gift of the Holy Ghost, whereby you shall be enabled to 
discern the presence, or the absence, of those inward dispositions 
which are the condition of God's vouchsafing or withholding the 
forgiveness of sin. Your sentence thus pronounced upon earth 
shall receive the divine sanction, and be ratified in heaven." 

But if the passage is to be thus understood (and nothing less 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 437 

will satisfy its literal meaning), it is evident that, in its original 
acceptation, it applies only to the case of the inspired ambassadors 
of Christ. For to none but them has there ever been committed 
such a gift of the Spirit as enables its possessor so to discern the 
state of men's hearts, as to be warranted in pronouncing them 
either still in a state of condemnation, or pardoned. It is an act 
of culpable inadvertence to claim, on the strength of the passage 
before us, this power for the existing clergy, as successors of the 
Apostles, without inquiring whether the indispensable qualifica- 
tion for its safe exercise — viz. the gift of the Spirit which the 
Apostles possessed, has descended to the existing church, or any 
part of it. And who shall arrogate to himself such a gift of spirit- 
ual discernment ? Manifestly the spiritual gift has been with- 
drawn, for overt transgressions are all that can now be made the 
subject of church censures. When Apostles are again vouchsafed, 
confirming their claim of inspiration by miracles, and having their 
sentences of condemnation, or absolution, visibly ratified by heaven, 
then, but not until then, we may affirm that there exists in the 
Church a power, similar to that exercised by the Apostolic college, 
of remitting or retaining sins. 

It may be asked, do proofs exist of the Apostles having exercised 
the power conferred upon them otherwise than as we may suppose 
it capable of being exercised now ? The reply is, that, in point of 
fact, they are found remitting and retaining sins, in the same sense 
in which Christ Himself did while upon earth, the Lord fulfilling 
at the same time His promise of ratifying their sentences. Yery 
soon after the day of Pentecost, St. Peter gave proof of his posses- 
ing this peculiar prerogative. Ananias, having sold his land, kept 
back part of the price, and laid the remainder at the Apostles' feet. 
The deception practised was unknown to the disciples, but Peter, 
under the promised influence of the Spirit, which enabled him to 
read the heart, detected and exposed it. He expostulated with 
Ananias on his attempted fraud, pronounced him guilty of lying 
against the Holy Ghost ; — in other words " retained " his sin, — 
and immediately the divine ratification of the Apostle's judgment 
followed ; — u Ananias, hearing these words, fell down, and gave up 
the Ghost." His wife Sapphira, the accomplice of his guilt, coming 
in soon afterwards, the same exhibition of apostolic power took 
place * In the case of Simon, the same Apostle employed lan- 
guage which no one, who did not possess a supernatural gift of 

*Acta, v. 3-10. 



488 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

spiritual discernment, could have ventured to employ: — Thou 
hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right 
in the sight of God. Kepent, therefore, of this thy wickedness, 
and pray God, if, perhaps, the thought of thine heart may be for- 
given thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness 
and in the bond of iniquity." * The history of St. Paul furnishes 
another example, with, however, a different result. He and Bar- 
nabas, having come to Cyprus to preach the Word of God, found 
their operations impeded by the active opposition of Elymas the 
sorcerer. " Then Saul (who is also called Paul), being filled with 
the Holy Ghost " (and, consequently, enabled to discern this man's 
inward state), exercised his power of remitting and retaining 
sins. He denounced Elymas as a child of the devil, and an enemy 
of all righteousness, that is, retained his sins; and the Lord, by 
inflicting upon the sorcerer the punishment of blindness for a sea- 
son, bore testimony to the word of His chosen messenger, f In the 
epistles of this Apostle, frequent allusions to the exercise of the 
same power are found. Thus in the case of the incestuous Corin- 
thian, the Apostle had resolved, "in the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ " and " with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ " (committed 
to himself in common with the other Apostles), " to deliver such an 
one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh:" \ but, on hearing 
of the offender's repentance, he " remitted " his sin ;" " to whom 
ye forgive anything, I forgive also : for if I forgave anything, to 
whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it, in the person of 
Christ ;" § i. e. as personating, or representing Christ, not in His 
offices of prophet, priest, and king, but in that authority which the 
Son of Man exercised on earth, — the authority to forgive sins. 
In like manner, we read of his delivering Hymenaeus and Alexan- 
der unto Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme. For that 
these passages refer to simple excommunication both the peculiar 
form of the expression, and the evident allusion to some extraor- 
dinary bodily visitation, as following upon the apostolic condem- 
nation, render altogether improbable. 

Why such a power should have been lodged in the Apostles' 
hands, and why it should expire with them, seems not difficult of 
explanation. The first founders of the Church had difficulties to 
contend with, which none of their successors have had. The leaven 
of Christianity was but just being introduced into the corrupted 

• Acts, viii. 21—23. tActs, xiii. 6—11. 

tlCor. v. 3-5. J 2 Cor. ii. 10. 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 439 

mass of the heathen world, and the general diffusion of Christian 
sentiments, which renders it comparatively easy for the modern 
teachers of religion to inculcate the precepts of the Gospel, being 
wholly wanting, the Apostles had nothing, in their contests with 
anti-christian error, to fall back upon but their personal preroga- 
tives. In point of fact, the first churches, as we gather from St. 
Paul's epistles, frequently presented a strange admixture of foreign 
elements, partly of Jewish, and partly of heathen, origin, and the 
wildest and most licentious doctrines found a place side by side 
with the pure teaching of the Apostles. To meet such a state of 
things, which might have issued in the total subversion of the 
Christian faith; to overawe the turbulent, and control the vagaries 
of an unbridled imagination, nourished amidst the abominations 
of heathenism; it was necessary that in the hands of the first 
heralds of the Gospel, divinely qualified as they were to exercise 
without abusing it, an extraordinary power should be vested, 
which none could gainsay, or resist. While the mass was in the 
first stage of effervescence an authority to control its movements 
was needful and salutary. And such an authority was conferred 
by Christ upon the Apostles. They possessed the power, not only 
of working miracles in general to convince the unbeliever, but of 
exposing, and punishing with temporal inflictions, Christ bearing 
testimony to their word, those hidden depravities of the heart 
within the pale of the Church which, whether evincing themselves 
in moral turpitude or heretical blasphemy, had already been con- 
demned by God. The spirit of the old dispensation was for a time 
continued under the new ; until such time, namely, as Christianity, 
in its leading principles, doctrinal and practical, should have taken 
a stronger hold of men's minds. But as soon as things had settled 
into this state, it was natural that the extraordinary power, suit- 
able to the previous period of transition, should be withdrawn, 
and the expulsion of sin and error from the Christian community 
be left to the exercise of an uninspired discipline, and the gradual 
approximation of Christians to the standard of practice set before 
them in the inspired Word. 

Do the words of Christ, then, admit of no application whatever 
to the uninspired successors of the Apostles in the Christian 
ministry? Far from it. Here, also, as in the former case, the 
Church inherits apostolic powers ; but she inherits them subject to 
the limitations which the difference between inspired and unin- 
spired men renders necessary. To pronounce absolutely the sins 
of any person remitted or retained is a profane parody upon the 



440 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

original apostolic power ; for it implies a power which belongs to 
God onlj ; and to those upon whom God may be pleased by special 
gift to bestow it, — that of seeing into the heart of man: but to 
declare conditionally — that is, on the presumption of repentance 
and faith — the forgiveness of sins to the penitent, is still the office 
of the Church, and especially of her ministers, for this, in fact, is 
nothing more than the preaching of the Gospel. In this improper 
and secondary sense, and in no other, is the apostolic privilege 
shared in by ordinary Christian ministers. By denouncing God's 
judgments against the impenitent they retain sins; by assuring 
the penitent of forgiveness, they remit sins ; by inviting all men 
to believe on Christ that they may be saved they open the king- 
dom of heaven: — thus far, and no further, are they inheritors of 
the authority once given to the Apostles. In this sense, in fact, it 
is that the passage in St. John's Gospel is, by most Protestant 
writers of note, applied to post-apostolic times ; of whose general 
method of interpretation the words of Bishop Jewell, cited in the 
note, will serve as a specimen. * It is worthy of remark, indeed, 
that for instances of the exercise of such a power by others besides 
the Apostles we search the inspired records in vain. To remit or 
retain sins, as St. Paul himself did, forms no part of his commis- 
sion to Timothy and Titus ; nor does he ever recognise such a 
power in the presbyters, or deacons, mentioned in his other epistles. 
The Apostle could send forth Timothy to preside, for the time 
being, over the Church of Ephesus ; to reprove, rebuke, and ex- 
hort ; to convince gainsay ers, and to edify the flock ; but he could 
not, and did not, send him as the Father had sent Christ, and 
Christ had sent the Apostles, nor could he bestow upon him the 
gift of the Holy Ghost for the remission and retention of sins. 
And certainly powers which Timothy and Titus, and their fellow 
workers of the apostolic age, did not possess, the present bishops 
and presbyters of the Church cannot be supposed to inherit. 
Protestantism rejects the dogma of a human priesthood on the 

* " Ministris a Christo datum esse dicimus ligandi, solvendi, aperiendi, claudendi 
potestatem. Ac solvendi quidein munus in eo situm esse, ut minister, vel dejectis ani- 
mis et vere resipiscentibus per Evangelii praedicationeni, merita Christi, absolutionem- 
que offerat, et certam peccatorum condonationem, ac spem salutis aeternaB denunciet : 
aut eos qui gravi scandalo, et notabili aliquo delicto, fratrum animos offenderint, et sese a 
communi societate, Ecclesiae, et a Christi corpore quodammodo abalienarint, resipiscentes 
reconciliet, et in fideliuin coetum atquo unitatem recolligat et restituat. Ligandi vero ilium 
claudendique potestatem exercere dicimus, quoties vel incredulis et contumacibus regni 
ccelorum januam recludit, illisque vindictam Dei, et sempiternum supplicium edicit, vel 
publice excommunicatos ab Ecclesiae gremio excludit."— Apol. Eccl. Ang. 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 441 

same ground on which apostolic Christianity does so. When the 
reformed confessions enunciate, as the article of a falling or stand- 
ing Church, that " we are justified by faith only," they intend not 
only to express, as has been already remarked, the inwardness of 
a justified state, or the fact that a conscious reliance upon the 
Saviour's merits, and not an external act of the Church, is the 
instrument of justification, but to affirm further that, by this 
conscious act of faith, the believer is at once, and without the 
intervention of any human mediator, made partaker of the saving 
efficacy of Christ's death. Faith connects us with the priestly office 
of Christ, both in its propitiatory and its intercessory aspect; 
through Him directly, and not mediately — "the new and living 
way" — we draw near to God, and enter the most holy place. 
Wherever justification by faith is held in its true Protestant sense, 
the doctrine of a human priesthood becomes a useless excrescence, 
and falls off of itself ; for what need can he feel of a human me- 
diator who already enjoys fellowship with God in and through 
Christ ? Hence is to be explained the peculiar vehemence with 
which Romish writers have ever assailed this doctrine, and the 
misrepresentations to which in their hands it has been subject. 
The assailants must in many cases be too well acquainted with 
the writings of the reformers not to know that solifidianism, so 
far as the word expresses a tendency to laxity of practice, is as 
earnestly repudiated by the latter as by themselves : the animosity 
exhibited proceeds from a different source; and the Lutheran doc- 
trine of justification is assailed not so much because it is thought 
dangerous to morality as because it robs the Church — that is, the 
clerical order — of its assumed priestly character. Hinc illae 
lacrymae. As the dogma of the corporate life makes the Church, 
not Christ, the author of spiritual life, so the doctrine of a human 
priesthood under the Gospel makes the clergy the arbiters of the 
Christian's destiny : for such surely they are to whom is given the 
power of barring, or opening, as they please, access to God. With 
an instinct which never errs, the advocates of the tridentine system 
feel that justification by faith, by which is simply meant that 
Christ in His priestly office is present instead of being represented 
by a sacerdotal order, is out of place in their doctrinal structure, 
and must either remain to mar its symmetry, or be expelled 
from it. 

And this leads us to remark, in conclusion, that the sacerdotal 
principle may be actively at work where Romanism is not form- 
ally professed. Wherever statements are put forth to the effect 



442 church of en R 1ST. 

that the Church is the representative of Christ upon earth, — or, 
as Moehler expresses it, the perpetual incarnation of the Son of 
God — we have reason to suspect its existence. A moment's con- 
sideration will show that the notion of a proper human priesthood 
within the Church is the direct consequence of such a mode of 
speaking. The Church, it is said, as standing in the place of 
Christ upon earth, is invested with His offices, regal, prophetical, 
and priestly ; and, by virtue of the latter, is empowered to medi- 
ate between man and God. But how can the Church, if that 
term be used, as Scripture uses it, to signify the whole of the body 
of Christ, or the whole of a local church, as the case may be, me- 
diate between herself and God ? A representative must be so to a 
third party, not to himself. The anomaly is evident ; and, in 
truth, the theory never remains in its incipient stage, where it is 
harmless, because incapable of practical application. The Church, 
as is usual, very soon comes to mean the clergy, and it is only 
necessary to push the doctrine of representation one step further 
to make it appear that as the Church is the vicar of Christ upon 
earth, so the clergy are the representatives of the Church, and 
concentrate in themselves its royal, prophetical, and priestly func- 
tions. Once this point is gained, the doctrine of a human priest- 
hood, whether we call it by that name or not, becomes inevitable. 
The Christian minister assumes the character of a mediator be- 
tween God and the laity, and apart from his ministrations the 
ordinances of Christ, however lively the faith with which they are 
received, fail to convey covenanted grace. The people become an 
appendage of the priesthood, in whose hands all the vital powers 
of the Church are regarded as lodged. The priesthood, apart from 
the laity, retains its powers and privileges ; but the laity, separate 
from the priesthood, become shrivelled branches, cut off from the 
true vine. 

Such is ever the ultimate result of this theory. Hence it is the 
more important to mark, and withstand, its first advances. When 
Augustin said that "the dove" forgives sins, he was advancing a 
proposition which contained within itself all the elements of the 
Komish doctrine of the priesthood; for how can "the dove" (the 
body of Christ) forgive sins, save through its organs and represen- 
tatives, the clergy ? who thus become the dispensers of the treasures 
of heaven, opening and shutting, binding and loosing, as they will. 

In no respect can the Church be properly said to be the repre- 
sentative of Christ upon earth. For this is equivalent to saying 
that Christ having accomplished the work of redemption and 



CHRISTIAN MINISTERS NOT PRIESTS. 443 

ascended into heaven, has withdrawn from the active administra- 
tion of the kingdom of God upon earth, having previously dele- 
gated the authority belonging to him to a priestly caste, the repre- 
sentatives of his representative, through which alone He ordinarily 
communicates with His people. A more unscriptural notion 
cannot be conceived. Christ has not withdrawn from His church, 
or delegated to its pastors His own incommunicable powers. "Vi- 
carius est absentis, Christus est praesens." In His own proper 
person, indeed, He is no longer present upon earth, but in His 
place the Comforter has come, and where the Spirit of Christ is, 
there is Christ himself. The Holy Spirit is the only real repre- 
sentative or vicar of Christ upon earth. By the exercise of His 
kingly power, Christ orders and disposes all things for the welfare 
of His people ; by His Word and His Spirit He discharges amongst 
them His prophetical office; and if in His sacerdotal character — 
that is, as God and man united in one Person — He is at the right 
hand of God (the exercise of this office upon earth being incom- 
patible with the nature of the Christian dispensation), yet, inas- 
much as direct access to Him, as the perpetual High Priest of His 
Church, is opened to every Christian, He is virtually present also 
in His priestly function ; for to say that all Christians are every- 
where present to Christ is equivalent to saying that Christ is 
everywhere present to them : the Deity of our High Priest renders 
Him omnipresent. 

That the vicarious theory is incompatible with the hearty re- 
cognition of this great truth of Christ's presence amongst His 
people is too evident to permit us to entertain any doubts upon 
the point. Experience has amply proved that where the Church 
is regarded as the impersonation of Christ upon earth, the Sun of 
Eighteousness speedily disappears behind the intervening body, 
and His life-giving beams are intercepted. The Church in every 
point becomes the proximate object of view, and the real source 
of salvation. If Christ is still supposed to work, it is only indi- 
rectly through the Church. Hence it is that what Protestants 
mean by faith can find no place in the Church theory. Faith, 
according to the teaching of the reformed churches, is a conscious 
reliance upon a present Person; but in the Church system the 
divine Person who is the proper object of faith is not present ; the 
Church occupies His place, and the demand that we rely upon the 
Church in the same sense as we should upon Christ himself has 
not yet been made even by the theologians of Trent. The inge- 
nious reasonings by which it is sometimes attempted to be proved 



444 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

that by justifying faith our Lord and St. Paul mean ; an intellectual 
belief of the doctrines of Christianity, or the Christian religion 
itself, or the whole congeries of Christian virtues, — any thing, in 
short, but what it does actually mean in Scripture, — viz. such an 
acceptance of the word of promise as leads to trust in a Person — 
are all prompted by the secret consciousness, that the Person upon 
whom faith should fix is withdrawn from view, nothing being left 
in His place but the dreary abstraction of the church. 

If the Protestantism of the reformation were disfigured by far 
greater errors than it is, we should still owe an incalculable debt 
of gratitude to Luther and his contemporaries, for their services 
in removing the opaque veil which had been interposed between 
the Saviour and His people, and once more permitting the glory 
of Christ to be seen by man. 



SUPPLEMENTAEY CHAPTER. 

CHURCH PRINCIPLES ILLUSTRATED FROM THE WRITINGS OF CYPRIAN 

AND AUGUSTIN. 

Amidst the many painful circumstances which have marked the 
course of the recent theological movement in the Church of Eng- 
land, one good result, the importance of which it is impossible to 
overrate, has followed from it, — viz. a juster appreciation, than 
perhaps we ever before had, of the character and tendency of the 
patristic theology of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. The 
phase which the religious revolution of the 16th century assumed 
in England, as compared with that which marked its rise and 
progress abroad, tended to invest the period of Church history 
just named with a peculiar interest and importance in the eyes of 
the English reformers. While in Germany the reformation took 
its rise from a purely religious sentiment of which Luther was the 
representative and the mouth-piece, in England it partook more or 
less of a political character : or, perhaps, it is more correct to say 
that on the continent spiritual led to political emancipation from 



PRINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 445 

the fetters of the Papacy, while, amongst ourselves, the overthrow 
of the doctrinal system of Eome was a consequence of the rejec- 
tion of her assumed temporal authority. With the German 
reformers liberty to hold and to preach the Gospel, with the Eng- 
lish national independence, was the proximate object contended 
for ; though in neither case could the attainment of it be barren 
of ulterior results. Justification by faith, as distinguished from 
the sacramental, and pelagian, system which had corrupted the 
Church to its core, formed the mainspring, and the watchword, of 
the reformation abroad ; with us the absolute sovereignty of na- 
tions was the great principle in the first instance asserted. Luther 
protested principally against the intervention of the Church 
between the individual believer and God ; the English reformers 
against her usurpations over the state, or the doctrine of the 
supremacy of the Pope. It was the insolent assumption by an 
Italian prince of a right to depose princes, to absolve subjects from 
their oath of allegiance, and otherwise to interfere in the domestic 
concerns of the country, that impelled the English people, king, 
nobles, and commons, with a consent nearly unanimous, to shake 
off a yoke which to a free people had become intolerable. 

This peculiar bias of the English reformation operated, as 
regards the interests of religion, both advantageously and the 
reverse. The national character which the circumstances just 
mentioned imparted to the movement enabled our reformers to 
retain the ancient polity of the Church unchanged, and to pre- 
serve the visible line of ministerial succession ; advantages which 
the foreign Protestants were compelled, from the circumstances in 
which they were placed, to forego. On the other hand, the same 
circumstance tended to shift the ground of controversy between 
our divines and those of Eome from interior principles to their 
final results and visible exemplifications, thereby rendering it not 
so easy for future generations to maintain the field against the ai 
gumentative assaults of Home. While Luther was compelled to 
appeal both from the papal divines and the fathers to Scripture 
alone, our reformers, while repudiating the Romish doctrine of 
tradition, announced it as their formal principle, that Scripture i» 
to be understood according to the patristic interpretation of it, and. 
that to restore the Church to what she was in the 3d and 4th cen 
turies was the end to be aimed at in all attempts at reformation. 
To the adoption of this line of argument they were led by the 
advantage which they possessed of being able to point to an 
identity of form between the primitive polity of the Church and 



446 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

that which they had succeeded in establishing in England. The 
Church of the 4th century was episcopal, and it had no formal 
pope : this also was the form which the Church of England had 
assumed : hence the temptation was presented to our divines, when 
assailed by Eome, to fall back upon patristic, instead of original — 
that is, scriptural — Christianity, and to rest the issue of the con- 
troversy upon the ascertained doctrines and practices of the early 
Church. It was " a short and easy method " with Rome to say, 
" Prove from the remains of Christian antiquity that the ancient 
Church held the doctrines of the supremacy of the Pope, of masses 
for the dead, and of purgatory, and we will allow your claims. 
"We take our stand upon the Church of the 4th century." What 
made the temptation stronger was, that at that time Romish con- 
troversalists were wont to appeal to the fathers in support of the 
principal dogmas of their Church ; * so that the celebrated chal- 
lenge of Jewel was provoked, and justified, by the tactics of the 
adversary. "Whether they have done wisely in abandoning this 
ground for the more elastic, but more dangerous, doctrine of 
development (dangerous even to themselves, for why may not 
Christianity develope beyond Romanism ?) may be questioned. 

It is quite true that it was only formally that the principle of 
the English reformation was enunciated to be a restoration of the 
Church according to the mind of the "primitive fathers," and that, 
materially, a very different standard of doctrine was adopted. 
While our reformers extolled the imagined purity of the Church 
of the 4th century, their actual teaching on the most important 
points of doctrine was as different from that of the fathers as any 
thing could well be, and presented a perfect coincidence with that 
of the great foreign reformers. With the fathers on their tongue, 
they were Lutherans at heart ; and have indelibly impressed their 
convictions on the articles of the English Church. Nevertheless 
the formal enunciation of the principle alluded to has proved of 
serious injury to the cause of Apostolic Christianity amongst us. 
In the first place, it enabled the divines of a subsequent age, whose 
sympathies were far more with the patristic teaching than with that 
of the Protestant reformation, to obtain a footing in the Church of 
England, which they have ever since held, and from which no one 
can now wish to dislodge them ; and thus has been introduced 
amongst us a type of doctrine, which, in essential points, is 
more Romish than Protestant. In the next place, it had the effect 

* See the Romish Catechism, passim. 



PRINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 447 

of diverting the attention of our divines from the great doctrinal 
points at issue between the reformed and the Romish Churches to 
others of a less fundamental character, or rather, as has been 
already observed, from the interior principles of the respective 
systems to their visible and prominent results, and, consequently, 
of rendering a great part of our anti-Romish theology more super- 
ficial than it would otherwise have been. Such a doctrine, for 
example, as that of the supremacy of the pope has been set forth 
as the great point of difference between ourselves and Rome, and 
learned men have been tempted to forget that, when they had dis- 
proved, as it was easy for them to do, the existence of a formal 
pope in the first four centuries, they had by no means exposed,, or 
refuted, the erroneous notions on the subject of the Church, out 
of which the papacy by natural consequence sprang ; whereas, in 
truth, the doctrine of the papal supremacy is but the exterior 
symptom of the unsoundness which lies deep within, and which, 
if the present papal system were swept away, would speedily 
throw out something similar. In a word, the visible tokens of the 
disease have been too often mistaken for the disease itself. And, 
lastly, it has tended, more perhaps than any other circumstance, 
to perpetuate most mistaken notions as regards the actual state of 
doctrine in the ancient Church. They who had staked the issue 
of the controversy with Rome on the recorded teaching of the 
Church in the 4th century were naturally indisposed to see any 
errors in that teaching, much less those very errors (in germ) 
against which they were protesting; hence the writings of our 
early divines convey, to say the least, a very imperfect view of 
ancient Christianity, and abound with expressions concerning it 
which are calculated to mislead the unwary, or unlearned, reader. 
On the one hand, they were tempted to quote isolated sentences 
of the fathers as specimens of their ordinary teaching, which they 
were very far from being; and on the other to shut their eyes to 
_the unequivocal traces of Romish doctrine which are visible in 
the pages of Christian antiquity. It may be questioned, for 
example, whether on the very point on which our great writers 
— such as Barrow — have chosen to take issue with Rome, viz. 
the papal supremacy, due weight has been by them assigned to 
the statements of the early Latin fathers on the position which 
the see of Rome was even then beginning to occupy in western 
Christendom. Of what avails it to prove that the Bishop of Rome 
possessed, at that time, no formal jurisdiction over other bishops, 
if, notwithstanding, the ideas whence the papacy sprang were pre? 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

valent, and found strenuous advocates in the leading churchmen 
of the age ? 

It must be regarded as a singular mark of divine favour, that 
the principle on which our reformers professed to act was not 
formally incorporated in the articles of the English Church ; that 
not Scripture as interpreted by the fathers, but Scripture itself, 
was set forth as the rule of faith by which even the Catholic creeds 
were to be tested, and their truth proved. For the assertion may 
be safely hazarded that hardly one of the distinctive doctrines of 
Eomanism can be named, the rudiment of which cannot be traced 
to that very age of the Church which we had been taught to 
regard as the model for our imitation both in doctrine and in prac- 
tice. Experience has over and over again proved how impossible 
it is to construct a system which shall fairly represent the teaching 
of the third and fourth centuries, and yet be materially different 
from that of the Council of Trent ; materially different, for, as has 
been observed in the preceding pages, the great writers of that 
age recognised no other formal principle than that of Protestant- 
ism, — viz. the supreme authority of Holy Scripture in controver- 
sies of faith. The failure which has attended the attempts recently 
made amongst ourselves to frame an Anglican system, holding a 
midway position between Eomanism and evangelical Protestantism, 
is notorious ; the production, an insular one in every sense of the 
word, has, from the first, languished, and bids fair, ere long, to 
terminate its sickly existence. Indeed, the original authors of it 
have themselves pronounced the most significant comment on the 
result of their labours, by transferring their spiritual allegiance, 
one by one, to that Church which alone exhibits, in full and con- 
sistent operation, the characteristic features of the Church system. 

In proportion as this is recognised, and Scripture really becomes 
to us what it was intended to be, — the sole authoritative record 
of apostolic Christianity, and the standard of Christian doctrine, — 
will be our success in withstanding the advances of Eomanism, 
and reducing our own church to a closer conformity to the apos- 
tolic model. The fond notion that we can take up on patristic 
ground a tenable position against Eome will be abandoned, while 
our feet will be the more firmly planted on that rock of the divine 
Word which, when the argument has been made to rest exclu- 
sively upon it, has ever proved itself able to bear the weight, aud 
opposed an insuperable barrier to the assaults of error. 

To so desirable a result any contribution, however imperfect, 
must be held valuable ; and it may be a fit conclusion to the pre 



PRINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 449 

ceding discussion, to present the reader with a brief sketch of the 
opinions prevalent on the subject of the Church in the third and 
fourth centuries ; the period in which Christianity is supposed to 
have presented herself to the world in a garb of purity and bright- 
ness, which subsequent ages may imitate, but never can surpass. 

The confined limits of a single chapter make it necessary to 
narrow the field of survey, and to select such portions of it as are 
most strongly marked with the characteristic features which it is 
our object to bring out to view. Hence, we may at once dismiss, 
as unfit for our purpose, the great writers of the eastern Church. 
With the exception of Ignatius, these writers dwell upon the 
theoretical, rather than the practical, side of Christianity ; on the 
doctrines of the Gospel, rather than the nature and constitution 
of the Church. The dialectical spirit of the Greeks, in transferring 
itself from the speculations of heathen philosophy to Christian 
theology, found a congenial sphere of exercise in systematising 
the doctrines, and composing philosophical defences, of the faith ; 
and satisfied with the laurels which they gained in this field, they 
left the practical system of the Church, in its discipline and govern- 
ment, to be worked out and reduced to practice by the less subtle, 
but more energetic, leaders of the western Church. It is to the 
works of the principal Latin fathers that we must have recourse, 
if we would become acquainted with the principles of the church 
system, and trace the successive steps by which it advanced to 
maturity. And among these the chief place, in laying the founda- 
tions of the ecclesiastical edifice, must be assigned to Cyprian and 
Augustin ; the one the greatest prelate, the other the most influ- 
ential writer, of his time ; whose remains have ever formed the 
magazine whence the Catholic theory has drawn its weapons of 
argument and illustration. Besides the eminent position which 
these fathers occupied, and still occupy, in the Christian world, a 
peculiar interest attaches to the age in which they flourished, 
which may be termed the age of transition, or that in which tha 
principles of which the Papacy is the final result became fixed ; and 
the spirit of apostolic Christianity, as it breaks forth with striking 
effect, even in the pages of Tertullian, was at last overcome and 
supplanted by the ecclesiastical version of the Gospel. To the 
writings of Cyprian and Augustin, then, our attention will be con- 
fined, while we endeavour to ascertain the views which, in that 
age, had come to be generally entertained on the nature and 
functions of the Church. 

1. What the conception of the Church was, which had begun 

29 



450 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

to prevail in the age of Cyprian and Augustin, will be best 
learned from some examples of the mode in which these fathers 
expound the predicates of the Constantinopolitan creed ; especially 
those of oneness and unity. 

The following are some of Cyprian's statements on the oneness, 
or exclusiyeness, of the Church, taken from the remarkable tract 
" De Unitate Ecclesiae." After observing that persecution is not 
the only danger to which the faith is exposed, and that the great 
enemy of souls frequently employs more subtle, but not less 
deadly, weapons, — ^viz. the exciting of heresies and schisms, 
which entrap and destroy the simple-minded, ^— he reminds those 
to whom he writes, that " there is but one church, which, with a 
fruitful increase, is spread abroad far and wide. So the rays of 
the sun, though many, issue from one parent luminary; the 
branches of a tree, however numerous, are all sustained by one 
trunk ; and if the same fountain, through its abundant supply of 
water, feeds a multitude of rivulets, they are yet all connected by 
the singleness of the original spring. Attempt to separate a ray 
from the sun, and you will find that light cannot be divided; 
sever a branch from the tree, and it becomes fruitless ; cut off a 
stream from the fountain, it dries up. In like manner the church 
of the Lord diffuses its rays throughout the world ; but it is the 
same luminary that is everywhere present, and the unity of the 
body is not divided. With a rich exuberance she sends forth her 
boughs into the whole world, and pours forth, far and wide, her 
copious streams. Yet there is but one fountain, one origin, one 
mother, fruitful in successful procreation. In her womb we are 
conceived, by her milk we are nourished, by her spirit we are 
quickened. The spouse of Christ cannot be defiled ; she is incor- 
rupt and chaste. She knows but one home, one holy bridal- 
chamber Whosoever is separated from the Church is 

united to a harlot, is cut off from the promises belonging to the 
Church. He cannot attain the rewards, who abandons the Church, 
of Christ. He is an alien, a profanfj person, an enemy. He can- 
not have God for his Father who has not the Church for his 
mother. He who gathers save in the Church scatters. He who 
holds not the unity of the Church, holds not the law of God; 
holds not faith in the Father and the Son : holds not life and sal- 
vation. This sacrament of unity — this bond of an indissoluble 
concord — was prefigured by the unrent garment of Christ." 
(John, xix. 24.). 

" Let no one think that good men can separate from the Church. 



PRINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 451 

It is not the wheat, but the chaff, that the wind scatters ; it is not 
the firm, but the feeble, tree that the storm overturns. A perverse 
mind, a perfidious love of discord, are the causes of all heresy, 
past and present. These are they who, without a divine commis- 
sion, take upon themselves to preside over assemblies collected at 
random, and assume the name of bishops, while no one has con- 
ferred the episcopate upon them : whom the Holy Spirit, speaking 
in the Psalms, designates as pests and corrupters of the faith, 
deceitful as serpents, vomiting forth from their lips deadly poison. 
Whereas there is but one baptism, they conceive that they have a 
right to baptize. The fountain of life " (*. e. the baptism of the 
Church) " being deserted, they profess to administer the grace of 
the salutary, life-giving water ; by their baptism, men are defiled, 
not washed ; sins are accumulated, not purged away. That birth 
generates children of the devil, not of Cod. Born through a false- 
hood, they do not receive the promises consigned to faith. They 
cite, indeed, our Lord's words, 'Wheresoever two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst ;' but how 
can two or three be gathered in the name of Christ, when they are 
severed from Him, and from his gospel .... What peace, then, 
can the enemies of the brethren promise themselves ; what sacri- 
fices can the rivals of the priests believe that they offer ? Can they 
suppose that Christ is present in their assemblies, seeing they 
assemble outside the pale of the Church ? The sin of such persons 
is not purged, even by their being slain for confessing the name 
of Christ ; the inexpiable guilt of schism is not washed away, even 
by suffering. He cannot be a martyr who is not in the Church. 
Though they give themselves to the flames, or to the wild beasts, 
their sufferings are not the crown of faith, but the punishment of 
perfidy ; not the glorious exit of religious valour, but a death of 

despair We must separate ourselves, or rather fly, from 

such delinquents, lest, putting in our lot with them, and wander- 
ing from the right way through the paths of error, we should be 
involved in the same guilt. There is but one God, one Christ, 
one Church of Christ, one faith, and one Christian people, joined 
by the cement of concord into a compact unity of the body. This 
unity cannot be broken, nor can the one body be rent asunder. 
He, whoever he may be, who secedes from the maternal womb, 
cannot breathe or live apart ; he loses the substance of salvation." * 
That sentiments of this kind are by no means peculiar to the 

• Cyp. De Unit. Eccles. 



452 CHUECH OF CHRIST. 

book on the unity of the Church, the readers of Cyprian well 
know: similar ones are found scattered throughout the whole 
body of his epistles. To take a few examples at random: — to 
Magnus, who had. consulted him, whether they whom Novatian 
had baptized in schism should, on their reconciliation, be rebap- 
tized, Cyprian replies that, in his opinion, they ought to be so; for 
that Novatian's baptism, administered as it was by one not in 
communion with the Church, was no real baptism. "Our Lord 
Jesus Christ," he says, "when he declared that they who are not 
with Him are against Him, did not specify any particular kind of 
heresy, but pronounced all such, without exception, to be His 
adversaries. So the blessed apostle John has made no distinction 
between one heresy or schism and another; but designates all 
equally who had seceded from the Church, and opposed them- 
selves to it, antichrists (1 John, ii. 18, 19). Whence it is clear, 
that all who can be proved to have separated themselves from the 
unity and charity of the Catholic Church must be regarded as 
enemies of the Lord, and antichrists. It is written, ' But if he 
neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen 
man and a publican ; ' now if they who despise the Church are to 
be treated as heathens and publicans, much more must they be so 
who, in a hostile and rebellious spirit, establish false altars, an 
illicit priesthood, and sacrilegious sacrifices .... If any one 
should reply that Novatian acknowledges the same law which the 
Catholic Church does, baptizes with the same creed, worships the 
same God, — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and on this account 
may assume the power of baptizing, let him know that to us and 
schismatics there is not the same law, nor the same baptismal in- 
terrogation. For when they say, ' dost thou believe in the remis- 
sion of sins, and eternal life through the Holy Church,' they speak 
falsely in their interrogation, inasmuch as they have not the Church 
(amongst them)." * To the same effect, animadverting on Stephen's 
opinion concerning the re-baptizing of heretics and schismatics, 
he writes to Pompeius : " What blindness, what obliquity of mind, 
not to acknowledge the unity of faith which has come to us from 
God the Father, and from the tradition of our Lord and God, Jesus 
Christ ? For if, on this account, the Church is not among heretics, 
because it is one, and cannot be divided ; and for the same reason 
they have not the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as He is one, and dwelleth 
not among profane persons and seceders ; truly neither can baptism 

* Epist. 76. Ad Mag. 



PRINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 453 

be among such, for it cannot be disjoined, either from the Church 

or the Holy Spirit What an assertion to make, that there 

can be sons of God who are not born in the Church!"* In a 
similar strain he discourses on the schismatical presbyters of the 
faction of Felicissimus : " They propound peace, who themselves 
do not possess it. Seceders from the Church themselves, they offer 
to reconcile the lapsed to the Church. There is one God, one 
Christ, one Church, and one chair, founded on the rock by the 
Word of the Lord. No altar can be erected, no priesthood estab- 
lished, besides the one altar and the one priesthood." f 

It might have been thought that statements of this strong 
character were peculiar to Cyprian, and proceeded from the 
vehemence of his temperament, did we not possess, inserted in 
his works, an epistle from Firmilian, bishop of Caasarea in Cap- 
padocia, in which precisely the same ground is taken. Firmilian 
sided with Cyprian in the baptismal controversy, and argues at 
length against the validity of that ordinance, when administered 
by persons outside the pale of the Church. " Heretics," he says, 
"when they secede from the Church, can possess no (spiritual) 
power nor grace, since all power and grace resides in the Church, 
where the elders preside, to whom is committed authority to bap- 
tize, to impose hands, and to ordain. For as it is not lawful for a 
heretic to ordain, so neither can he impose hands, baptize, or per- 
form any holy and spiritual act, since he is a stranger to spiritual 
and heavenly sanctity ... If the baptism of heretics can rege- 
nerate, they who are baptized amongst them must be regarded as 
sons of God, not heretics : for the second birth which is given in 
baptism, generates sons of God. But if the spouse of Christ, the 
Catholic Church, is one, it is she alone who generates sons of God 

From the ark of Noah, which was a figure (sacramentum) 

of the Church of Christ, we learn to maintain the unity of the 
Church, as the apostle Peter expresses himself, ' The like figure 
whereunto even baptism doth save us ; ' showing, that as they who 
were not shut in with Noah perished in the waters ; so now, who- 
soever is not in the Church with Christ perishes outside, unless he 
in penitence return to the one salutary bath (of baptism) .... But 
he (Stephen) urges, that the mere name of Christ greatly avails to 
hallow a baptism, so that, wherever he may be, he who is baptized 
in the name, receives immediately the grace, of Christ ; forgetting 
that, if schismatical baptism avails to cleanse the man from sin, 

* Epist. 74. Ad Pomp. f Epist. 4C. Ad Pleb. 



454 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

we must, by parity of reasoning, hold that imposition of hands 
by schismatics is valid to confer the Holy Ghost. And so what- 
ever else is done among heretics will come to be deemed just and 
legitimate, provided it be done in the name of Christ ; whereas 
you (Cyprian and his colleagues), in your epistle, have shown that 
the name of Christ is of avail only in the Church, to which alone 
Christ hath committed (the power of conferring) heavenly grace."* 
If the moderation of tone, and circumspection of reasoning, 
characteristic of Augustin's writings, present a favourable con- 
trast with those of the fervid Cyprian, it was not because the 
former was at all less deeply convinced of the truth and import- 
ance of the principles enunciated by his predecessor. While in 
controversy with the Donatists, he successfully vindicates the va- 
lidity of baptism, by whomsoever administered, provided due 
matter and form were present, he was fully possessed with the 
idea of the body of Christ being a visible corporation, beyond the 
pale of which no saving grace could exist. In the following 
passages, this is either expressed or implied. " What does a sound 
faith, or haply an unmutilated sacrament of faith profit him, the 
integrity of whose charity is destroyed by the deadly wound of 
schism ; by the loss of which (charity) alone, all else that he pos- 
sesses is rendered unavailing to life eternal? "f "Whereas our 
predecessors maintained, that in the Catholic Church alone the 
Holy Spirit is, through the imposition of hands, given, their 
meaning was the same as that of the Apostle, when he says, that 
' the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit 
which is given us.' For that is the charity, or love, of which they 
are destitute who are severed from the communion of the Catholic 
Church ; and on this account, even should they speak with the 
tongues of men or of angels, should they understand all mysteries 
and all knowledge, should they possess faith so as to remove 
mountains, distribute all their goods to the poor, and give their 
bodies to be burned, it profiteth them nothing. They possess not 
the love of God who love not the unity of the Church ; and on 
this account it is rightly affirmed, that the Holy Spirit is not re- 
ceived, save in the Catholic Church There are many ope- 
rations of the Spirit enumerated by the same apostle, who thus 
concludes : ' All these worketh one and the same spirit, divid- 
ing to every man severally as he will.' Since, then, the sacrament, 
which even a Simon Magus could receive, is one thing, the opera- 

♦ Epist. Firmil. (Epist. Cyp. 7 1..'. t Do Bap. Cont. Don. 1. i. s. 11. 



PRINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 455 

tion of that Spirit which is the property only of the good, another ; 
whatever heretics and schismatics may receive, charity, which 
covers a multitude of sins, is the peculiar gift of Catholic unity 

beyond the pale of which the aforesaid charity exists 

not, and without it everything else, though it may be recognised 
and approved, cannot profit or deliver." * " While the integrity 
of the sacrament (of baptism) is to be acknowledged wherever it 
is administered, it must be remembered, that, beyond the unity of 
the Church, it avails not to remission of sins." f " The comparison 
of the Church to the garden of Eden signifies to us, that without 
her pale men may receive her baptism indeed, but can neither 
receive nor retain the bliss of salvation. The baptism of the 
Church may be elsewhere, but only within the Church is the gift 
of eternal life to be found." X "To salvation and life eternal, no 
one can attain who holds not Christ the head. But no one can 
hold Christ the head, who is not in communion with His body, 
the Church." § "Within that threshing-floor (of the Church), 
there may be both good and bad; outside it there cannot be 

good." | 

The mixture of truth and error which the foregoing citations, 
which faithfully represent the teaching of these two eminent 
fathers on the subject under discussion, contain, must strike every 
reader. That there is no salvation out of that Church which is 
composed of Christ's living members ; that every one who belongs 
not to it is, whatever be his religious profession, without hope, 
and without God in the world ; that beyond its pale, no real Chris- 
tians are found, is beyond doubt : but this is far from being the 
meaning of Cyprian and Augustin. The Church, within which 
alone salvation is to be found, was, in their view, the visible 
society, or societies, in communion with the Catholic bishops, to 
union with which they conceived a sacramental efficacy to be 
attached, which imparted to the religious acts performed within 
its pale an acceptableness in the sight of God, which they would 
not otherwise have possessed. Though not all within this conse- 
crated pale was Christ's, yet beyond it there were not, and could 
not be, any in life-giving union with Him ; the faith which schis- 
matics professed, however orthodox, becoming, in their case, 
inefficacious to salvation ; the sacraments, however celebrated " ac- 
cording to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity 

* De Bap. Cont. Don. 1. iii. 8. 21. t Ibid. 1. iii. s. 22. 

X Ibid. 1. iv. s. 1. } De Unit. Ecolea. 8. 49. 

| De Unic. Bap. 8. 30. 



456 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

are requisite to the same," failing to convey covenanted grace; 
and what appeared to be the fruits of the Spirit, being nothing 
better than counterfeit imitations. To what results such principles 
must, and did in fact, lead, it is needless to remark. What is most 
difficult to account for is, the unquestioning confidence with which 
they were received and maintained by so diligent a student of 
Scripture as Augustin, to whom it never appears to have occurred 
to examine on what grounds the saving grace of Christ was abso- 
lutely confined to the visible Catholic Church, or a sacramental 
virtue connected with a particular line of ministerial succession. 
Why did he not recollect that the rule which he himself lays down 
in reference to the sacraments is applicable to other things also : 
" Sicut ergo et intus quod diaboli est arguendum est, sic et foris 
quod Christi est agnoscendum est. An extra unitatem ecclesiae 
non habet sua Christus, et in unitate ecclesiae habet sua diabolus ? " 
(De Bap. cont. Don. 1, iv. s. 13.) But it is only given to a few to 
rise superior to the errors and prejudices of the age in which they 
live. 

In proportion as the doctrine of the exclusiveness of the Church 
advanced to maturity, did that of its unity assume a fixed and 
concrete form. To affirm, that beyond the pale of the visible 
church there is no salvation, would have been unmeaning, did no 
means exist of clearly defining the boundaries of the sacred in- 
closure. On this point, the early fathers speak nearly as indeter- 
minately as Scripture itself. To the simple scriptural unities — 
"one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one God and Father of all" — 
Tertullian adds, only, however, as a guarantee for soundness of 
doctrine, a community of descent from apostles, or apostolical 
churches ; and inculcates among all branches of the visible church, 
which should be found to agree in these particulars, the duties of 
brotherly love and mutual recognition.* True it is, that when 
he comes to define more closely how a church is to prove its 
apostolical origin, he insists particularly upon the succession of 
bishops from the first ; but even while enlarging on this point, he 
gives the preference to apostolicity of doctrine. " If any of the 

* Deliino in orbem profecti (Apostoli) eandem doctrinam ejusdem fidei nationibus promul- 
gaverunt, et proinde ecclesias apud unamquamque civitatem condiderunt, a quibus traducem 
fidei et semina doctrines caeterae exinde ecclesiae mutuatae sunt, et quotidie mutuantur ut 
ecclesiae fiant. Ac per hoc et ipsae Apostolicaa deputantur, ut soboles Apostolicarum eccle- 
siarum. Omne genus ad originem suam censeatur necesse est. Itaque tot et tantas ecclesiae, 
una est ilia ab Apostolis prima, ex qua omnes. Sic omnes prima et Apostolicae, dum una 
omnes probant unitatem : dum est illis communicatio pacis, et appellatio fraternitatis, et 
contesseratio hospitalitatis.— De Praascrip. Haeret. s. 20. 



PRINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 457 

heretical sects/' lie says, " should venture to ascribe themselves to 
the age of the Apostles, in order that they may appear to be of 
apostolical origin, we reply; — let them exhibit the first founda- 
tion of their churches ; let them declare the series of their bishops 
so from the commencement descending by succession, that the 
first of such bishops had some one of the Apostles, or of their 

contemporaries, for his predecessor But even should they 

feign something of this kind, it will profit them nothing. For 
their doctrine, when compared with the apostolical, proves by its 
discrepancy therefrom, that it had for its author, neither an Apos- 
tle, nor an apostolical man : for as the Apostles could not have 
taught contrary to each other, so the apostolical men cannot be 
supposed to have taught contrary to the Apostles. By a reference 
to this standard, they (the heretics) can be tested even by those 
churches which, being lately founded, cannot produce, as their 
author, either an Apostle or an apostolical man ; which, however, 
professing as they do the same faith, are, on account of affinity of 
doctrine, not the less entitled to the name of apostolical." * But 
in the age of Cyprian, when sects began to make their appearance, 
which in doctrine, and even in polity, agreed with the genuine 
traditions of the Apostles, the simpler theory of Tertullian became 
inapplicable, and a more stringent definition of the unity of the 
Church was needed, to distinguish the latter from the folds of 
heresy. And now commenced the effort to invest the organic 
unity of Christ's body, which, as has been more than once ob- 
served, is, in its primary state, inward and spiritual, with a cor- 
responding outward form ; an effort in itself natural and laudable, 
but which, from the principles assumed throughout the process, 
produced in the end evils of a serious character. The episcopalian 
theory of Cyprian was the first step in advance. However the 
dissident bodies might profess the orthodox faith, and retain the 
apostolical polity of episcopacy, they had separated from the com- 
munion of the Catholic bishops — the bishops, that is, who could 
trace their origin in an uninterrupted line of succession to the 
Apostles, — and established an episcopate of their own : upon this 
defect in their system, therefore, Cyprian took his stand, and 
strenuously inculcated the dogma, that the legitimate episcopal 
chair is in each church the divinely appointed repository of the 
"Sacrament of Unity." "I say these things," he writes to Flo- 
rentius Pupianus, " not in a spirit of boasting, but of grief, inas- 

• De Praescrip. Hseret. 



458 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

much as you constitute yourself the judge of God and of Christ, 
who declares to His apostles, and through them to all bishops who 
are the legitimate successors of the Apostles, 'He that heareth 
you, heareth me ; and he that heareth me, heareth Him that sent 
me. He that rejects you, rejects me, and Him that sent me.' For 
hence it is, that schisms and heresies spring up, — viz. from a pre- 
sumptuous despising of the bishop, who alone presides over the 
Church ; as if he who is honoured by the divine approval is to be 
deemed unworthy of (ruling over) men Although a con- 
tumacious band of unruly spirits may depart, the Church never 
separates from Christ ; and they are the Church who cleave to 
their priest and pastor (the bishop). You ought to know that the 
bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the bishop ; so that if 
any one be not with the bishop, he is not in the Church." * " An 
intolerable grief oppresses me, ever since I heard that you " (the 
confessors at Eome) " had, contrary to the rule of the Church, to 
Christ's law, and to the principles of Catholic unity, given your 
consent to the appointment of another bishop (Novatian), that is, 
to the establishment of another Church, and the division of Christ's 
members." f "Throughout the successive lapses of time, the 
custom of the Church, in the ordination of bishops, has so de- 
scended, that the Church has appeared founded on its bishops, and 
by them, as rulers, every act has been directed." J " The Church 
is one, and therefore cannot be within and without, at the same 
time. If it is with Novatian, it cannot have been with Cornelius. 
But if it was with Cornelius, who, by a legitimate ordination, 
succeeded Fabian in the episcopal chair, Novatian is not in the 
Church, nor can he be deemed a bishop, who, setting at nought 
the divine and apostolical tradition, took his origin from himself 
and succeeded to no one." § 

That the principle of ecclesiastical unity in each diocese resides 
in the Catholic bishop — so that all who were not in communion 
with him were to be regarded as outside the Church — was an 
intelligible rule, and, as a test of church-membership, easily ap- 
plied; # but how was the whole church throughout the world, 
consisting as it did of a number of independent societies, each 
under its own bishop, to realize and exhibit its unity ? To meet 
this difficulty, Cyprian propounded his well-known theory of the 
unity of the episcopal office in the abstract, however multiplied 
might be its living representatives. " There is one undivided 

• Ad Flor. Pup. Epiat. 69 t Ad Confess. Rom. Epist. 44. 

J Ad Lapsos, Epist. 27. 2 Ad Magnum, Epist. 76. 



PRINCIPLES OP CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 459 

episcopate, which becomes visible in the person of each individual 
bishop (cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur)."* "There is 
one episcopate, diffused everywhere by the harmonious multi- 
plicity of bishops." f "For this cause, dear brother, has the vast 
body of the priests (bishops) been united by the Cement of mutual 
concord and unity, that if any one of our order should introduce 
heresy, and lacerate the Church of Christ, the rest might render 
succour, and, like compassionate shepherds, gather the Lord's 
sheep into the fold." J It soon, however, suggested itself to 
Cyprian — as, indeed, it must to any mind of ordinary acuteness 
— that this abstract view of the unity of the universal episcopate 
was but ill fitted for practical purposes, and that, to produce an 
impression on men's minds, the idea must be clothed with flesh and 
blood. The unity of the episcopate must see itself visibly repre- 
sented : the abstract notion must become a concrete fact. The 
principle being established, that bishops hold the same place in 
the Church which the Apostles formerly did, it was not difficult 
to discover the required visible centre of unity. Cyprian observed 
— what indeed is evident — that Scripture ascribes to the apostle 
Peter an undefined pre-eminence amongst his brethren of the 
apostolic college ; a position which the words of Christ addressed 
to him in Matt. xvi. 19. seem to foretel that he should occupy. 
Substituting for Peter, the occupant for the time being of the 
episcopal chair at Kome, with which city the Apostle was sup- 
posed to have had a peculiar connection, and for the apostolic 
college the episcopate of later times, Cyprian found what he 
wanted, and, in a number of remarkable passages, gives sufficient 
evidence of the point to which theological reflection was tending. 
A few of them will be sufficient to illustrate his train of thought. 
" This " (schism and its evils) "takes place from men's not recurring 
to the fountain-head of truth, and the doctrine of our heavenly 
Master. There is no need of prolix argument ; the proof is short, 
and easy of comprehension. The Lord says to Peter, 'Thou art 
Peter,' &c. ; and again, 'Feed my sheep.' Upon him alone He 
builds His Church, to him he commits His sheep to be fed. And 
although, after his resurrection, he invests all the Apostles with 
equal power, saying to them, 'As the Father hath sent me,' &c, 
yet, that he might exhibit (the principle of) unity, He, by His 
authority, so disposed matters, that that unity should take its 
beginning from one (Peter). All the Apostles, indeed, were what 

• De Unit. Eccles. p. 397. (Edit. Baluz.). t Ad Anton. Epist 52. 

t Ad Steph. Epist 67. 



460 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

Peter was, — endowed with an equal share of honour and power ; 
but Christ begins with one, and the primacy is assigned to Peter, 
in order that it may be shown that there is one Church, and one 

chair Of this Church, how can he be supposed to hold the 

faith, who holds not the unity ? How can he who resists the 
Church (who deserts the chair of Peter, upon whom the Church 
is founded), hope that he is in the Church?"* "Where, and by 
whom, remission of sins is given is plain. For to Peter first, upon 
whom the Lord founded the Church, and from whom he derived 
the origin of unity, was committed a power of remitting on earth 
sins which should be remitted in heaven. And after his resurrec- 
tion, He declared to all the Apostles, 'As the Father hath sent/ 
&c." f " In addition to their former misdeeds, they (the schisma- 
tics), having appointed a pseudo-bishop for themselves, dare to 
repair to Eome, and to the chair of Peter, the chief church, 
whence the unity of the priesthood (sacerdotalis unitas) took its 
rise." X " Those who took their journey to you (Cornelius), we 
exhorted that they would acknowledge, and hold fast by, the root 

and mother of the Catholic Church (the Church of Kome) 

"We directed letters to be sent throughout our province, exhorting 
all our colleagues to ratify your election, and steadfastly to main- 
tain fellowship and union with you, — that is, with the Catholic 
Church itself." § Moehler, while granting to the Protestant that 
the texts cited from Scripture to prove the primacy of the bishop 
of Eome are insufficient for the purpose, may well point to such 
passages as the foregoing, as evidence sufficient that, even so early 
as the third century, "the Pope was but waiting a summons to 
make his appearance." || 

2. If from the conception of the Church which the writings of 
Cyprian and Augustin exhibit, we pass to the functions with which 
they invest it, the evidence on which we must assign a very early 
origin to the errors of Eome becomes still more decisive. The 
theory which they propound, or tacitly assume, is precisely that 
of Trent, — viz. that the Church is the inheritress of the preroga- 
tives, royal, priestly, and prophetical, which Scripture assigns to 
the Saviour, and presents herself to men as the vicar and represen- 
tative of Christ upon earth, the repository, and even the source, 

* De Unit. Eccles. It is right to mention that the words inclosed in brackets, "qui cathe- 
dram Petri, super quern fundata est ecclesiae deserit," are by Baluzius adjudged to be an 
interpolation.— See his remarks ad loc. 

t Ad Jubajan. Epist. 73. J Epist. 55. Ad Cornel. 

\ Epist. 45. Ad Cornel. U Einheit in der Kirche, p. 247 



PRINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 461 

of all grace. The human instrument throws into the shade the 
divine agent, and Christ is virtually deposed from his mediatorial 
throne. 

Thus, as regards the communication of regenerating grace, 
Cyprian's ordinary mode of speaking may be collected from the 
following passages : — " The Lord invites those who thirst to come 
and drink of the living water which flows from Him. Whither 
then is he who thirsts to betake himself ? To the heretics, among 
whom the fountain of living water exists not, or to the one Church, 
which upon one (Peter), who received the keys of it, was by the 
word of the Lord founded ? This is that one Church which pos- 
sesses the whole power of her spouse and Lord Those who 

in Samaria believed were baptized within the pale of the Church, to 
which alone it has been granted to communicate the grace of bap- 
tism and remission of sins." * " But if the birth of baptism confers 
regeneration, how can heresy, which is not the bride of Christ, 
generate sons of God ? It is the Church alone which, being united 
to Christ, spiritually generates sons, according to the apostle's 
observation, — ' Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, 
that he might cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.' 

Since the new birth of Christians takes place in baptism, but the 

regenerating and sanctifying power of baptism is with the bride of 
Christ, who alone can spiritually generate sons to God, how can he 
have God for his father who has not the Church for his mother ?"f 
"It is manifest that they who are not in the Church must be 
numbered among the (spiritually) dead, . . . since there is one 
Church, to which the gift of eternal life has been vouchsafed, 
which eternally lives, and which quickens the people of God." \ 
So Firmilian, in his epistle to Cyprian: "The second birth which 
takes place in baptism generates sons of God. But if there is but 
one spouse of Christ, — viz. the Catholic Church, — she alone it is 

that generates sons of God You have shown in your 

epistle that the name of Christ avails only in the Church, to 
which alone Christ has vouchsafed the power of (imparting) 
divine grace." § Augustin follows in the steps of his pre- 
decessor. "The Church forsooth brings forth by baptism all 
(who are brought forth), whether it be from her own womb, or 
from that of her handmaid" (the schismatical bodies.) || In like 
manner, remission of sins is by both fathers made the prerogative 

• Epist. 73. Ad Jubajan. 

t Epist. 74. Ad Pomp. % Epist. 71. Ad Quint. 

{ Firm. Epist. I De Bap. conk Don. 1. i. e. 23. 



462 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

of the Church. "The dove," says Augustin, "remits" (sins.) 
Cyprian's version of the article of the Apostles' creed on the for- 
giveness of sins — "I believe in the forgiveness of sins through 
the Holy church"* — has been already noticed : whatever may be 
its value in a critical point of view, it sufficiently indicates the 
theological tendencies of the writer. 

But to affirm in the abstract that the Church possesses the power 
of generating sons of God, and forgiving sins, is obviously to leave 
the theory incomplete ; for where is this Church, and by what 
organs does she act ? It has been observed in the foregoing pages 
that in such expressions as these the Church really means the 
clergy ; and in fact, the pages of Cyprian afford abundant proof of 
the facility with which the abstract passes into the concrete, and 
the representatives of the Church come to stand in the place of the 
Church itself. By this father the Catholic bishops, and by com- 
mission from him the rest of the clergy, are habitually spoken of as 
the specific channels through which the grace of Christ is conveyed 
to His people. " In this (Church) we (the bishops) preside ; for 
its honour and unity we contend ; its grace and glory we with 
faithful devotion defend. We, by divine permission, water the 
thirsty people of God ; we guard the boundaries of the vital fountain 
(baptism). Why, then, for maintaining the right of our possession, 
should we be deemed violators of unity ?" f " The power of 
remitting sins," writes Firmilian, "was given to the apostles, and 
to those churches which they, being sent by Christ, founded, and 
to the bishops who, by vicarious ordination, succeeded them." J 
The same thing is expressed, or implied, in a numbers of passages, 
which at the same time show how nearly Cyprian approached to 
the Komish doctrine of priestly intention. " The Scripture says, 
'Abstain from strange water, and drink not from a strange fountain. 
In order, therefore, that the water of baptism may wash sin away, 
it is necessary that it be cleansed and sanctified by the priest. . . . 
But how can he cleanse the water who himself is unclean, and 
destitute of the Spirit ? Or how can he by baptism convey to 
another remission of sins, whose own sins, as being those of a 
schismatic, are not remitted? "§ "Who is there of any maturity 
of wisdom in the Church who would maintain that the mere invo- 
cation of the names (of the Trinity) suffices to the remission of sins 
and the sanctifying of baptism, when every one knows that this 

* Epist. 70. Ad Jan. See also Epist. 76. Ad Mag. 

t Ej>ist 73. Ad Jubajan. t Epist. Firmil. 2 Epist 70. Ad Januar. 



PRINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 463 

is of avail when he also who baptizes has the Holy Spirit (and not 
otherwise)?"* " Whereas the sins of each person are remitted 
in baptism, the Lord in his gospel teaches ns that they can be 
remitted by those alone who have the Holy Spirit." f "Can he 
give water from the fountains of the Church who himself is not in 
the Church ? Can he convey the salutary draughts of Paradise 
(baptism) who, perverse, and self-condemned, withers with eternal 
drought outside the Church?" J "I (Cyprian) remit all kinds of 
sin ; even those committed against God I examine not with the full 
rigour of judicial inquiry. By remitting sins more than I ought 
I almost make myself a transgressor." § "Let each of you, I entreat, 
confess his sin, while life is yet his ; while confession is available ; 
while satisfaction and remission effected through the priests (facta 
per sacerdotes) is acceptable with God." || 

From the passages already cited, it will easily be surmised that 
in Cyprian's and Augustin's theology the sacraments hold a 
prominent, if not an exclusive, place. In point of fact, what in 
modern times has been termed the sacramental system appears, 
especially in Cyprian's writings, in full maturity of growth. In 
Cyprian's view the application of Christ's merits to the saving of 
the individual is effected by a series of ordinances, committed to 
the custody of the Church, — that is, the clergy, — each of which 
has a specific grace attached to it not to be obtained through any 
other channel. For example, it would be difficult, if not impos- 
sible, to extract from Cyprian's works a single passage in which 
the Word, and its correlative faith, are made to bear any part in 
the process of regeneration : it is baptism, and baptism alone, to 
which the salutary change is ever ascribed. 1" Baptism confers the 
new birth ; delivers from spiritual death ; makes men sons of God 
and Christ's sheep (baptizandus est ut ovis fiat ; quia una est aqua 
in ecclesia sancta quae oves faciat) ; and is the door to eternal life. ** 
The imposition of episcopal hands, or confirmation, which Cyprian 
more than once calls a sacrament, ff carries on the work begun in 

• Epist Firmil. t Epist 76. Ad Mag. t Epist. 73. Ad Jub. 

\ Epist 55. Ad Cornel. II Lib. De Lap. 

\ On tbis point Augustin, as usual, speaks more scripturally tban Cyprian. "Forma 
Sacramenti datur per Baptismumj forma justitiae per Evangelium."— Cont. Lit. Pet. 1. 
iii. s. 68. 

** Epp. 52. 63. 71. 73. 

ft "De eo vel maxime tibi scribendum .... eos qui sint foris extra ecclesiam tincti 

quando ad nos atque ad ecclesiam quae una est, venerint, baptizari oportere, oo 

quod parum sit eis manum imponere ad accipiendum Spiritum Sanctum, niti aooipiont et 
ecclesiae baptismum. Tunc enim demum plene sanctificari et esse filii Dei pogsint, si Sacra- 
mento utroque nascantur."— Epist. 72. Ad Steph. Compare Epist. 73. 



46-1 CHUKCH OF CHRIST. 

baptism ; the eucharist is a safeguard against the assaults of every 
enemy ; * and a penitential discipline restores the lapsed, f The 
power of faith, or a conscious reliance upon the merits of Christ, 
in securing the blessings of redemption, the leading doctrine of 
St. Paul, is nowhere recognised by Cyprian ; and even of Augustin 
the same must be said. Perhaps, however, the most striking 
proof of the undue prominence which the theology of the age had 
begun to assign to the sacraments, is derived from Cyprian's mode 
of interpreting certain passages of the Old Testament. In the 
river which watered the garden of Eden ; $ in the purifying lus- 
trations of the law ; § in the numerous passages of the prophets 
which describe the blessings of the Gospel under the figure of 
water ; | and in Christ's address to the woman of Samaria, and 
invitation to all that are athirst to come unto him and drink 
(John, vii. 37.) ; T Cyprian sees nothing but allusions to the sacra- 
ment of baptism. " As often," he says, " as water by itself is 
mentioned in Scripture, it is baptism that is meant ; ** as we see, 
for example, in Isaiah, xliii. 19. (' I will even make a way in the 
wilderness, and rivers in the desert.') In this passage, God, 
through the prophet, predicted that in places which formerly had 
been without water streams should abound, and water the elect 
people of God, — that is, those who are made sons of God by the 
generation of baptism. So in another place it is foretold that the 
Jews, if athirst for Christ, should come to us and drink, — that is, 
should obtain the grace of baptism : — 'He caused the waters to 
flow out of the rock for them ; he clave the rock also, and the 
waters gushed out.' (Isaiah, xlviii. 21.)" Of the Eucharist, too, 
the Jewish scriptures are, according to Cyprian, full. He dis- 
covers prophetical intimations of this sacrament in Noah's drink- 
ing wine ; in the bread and wine of Melchisedech ; in the descrip- 
tion of wisdom in the book of Proverbs, killing her beasts and 
mingling her wine ; in the prophecy of Jacob respecting Judah, 

* " Ut quos excitamus et hortamur ad proelium non inermes et nudos relinquamus, sed 
protectione sanguinis et corporis Christi muniamus ; et cum ad hoc fiat eucharistia ut possit 
accipientibus esse tutela, quos tutos esse contra adversariuni volumus, munimento dominie® ■ 
saturitatis armemur."— Epist. 54. Ad Cornel. 

t See the book De Lapsis, passim. I Epist. 73. I Epist. 76. Ad Mag. 

U Epist. 70. Ad Jan. ^ Epist. 63. Ad Caecil. 

** Augustin's more perspicacious intellect taught him the fallacy of this rule. " Non 
enim semper ubia quam nominat Scriptura, hoc visibile Baptismi sacramentum vult intelligi ; 
sed aliquando ipsum, aliquando aliud. Jam enim hoc visibili Baptismo etiam alios dia- 
cipuli Domini baptizaverant, antequam veniret in eos secundum ejus promissionem Spiritus 
Sanctus: de quo tamen idem Jesus dicit, 'Si quis sitit, veniat et bibat' .... Ecce aquam 
dicit Spiritum, qui nondum erat datus, cum jam aqua 1113. baptismi multis fuisset data."— 
De Unit. Eccles. s. 65. 



PRINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 465 

that he should wash " his garments in wine, and his clothes in the 
blood of grapes ; " and in Isaiah, lxiii. 3., " Wherefore art thou 
red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in 
the wine-fat ? " The whole epistle (No. 63.) in which these expo- 
sitions meet us should be perused by all who entertain exaggerated 
notions of the taste and sagacity of the early fathers as interpreters 
of Scripture. 

The tendency of the church system to invest the ministers of 
Christ with a sacerdotal character, is especially visible in the 
unconscious manner in which Cyprian and Augustin transfer into 
the Gospel the terms of the Law. The reader need hardly be in- 
formed that with them the ordinary designation of the Christian 
minister is sacerdos, or sacrificing priest ; or that priestly functions 
are constantly ascribed to him. When Cyprian would exhibit in 
all its enormity the sin of schism, his chief illustrations are drawn 
from the cases of Korah, and Uzziah, under the old covenant ; * 
while his exhortations to yield obedience to the catholic bishop 
are founded on the passages in Deuteronomy which inculcate obe- 
dience to the priest for the time being, f And as the Christian 
ministry becomes a priesthood, so the eucharist assumes the 
character of a proper sacrifice, and that not only for the living 
out for the dead. Speaking of the presumption of certain of the 
lapsed, Cyprian says : — " These (divine warnings) being despised, 
before their sins have been expiated, before confession has been 
made and their conscience cleansed by the sacrifice and hand of 
the priest, before the wrath of God has been appeased, they vio- 
lently invade the body and blood of Christ." X "I hear that 
certain presbyters, neither mindful of the Gospel nor of the honour 
due to the bishop and his chair, have begun to communicate with 
the lapsed, and to offer (the sacrifice) for them, and to deliver to 
them the eucharist, whereas these privileges should have been 
attained in regular order." § Again : — " For them " (the martyrs 
mentioned just before) "we continually offer sacrifices, as often as 
we celebrate the anniversaries of the passion of the martyrs."] 
Cyprian and his brother bishops had made a rule that no presbyter 
should be appointed to the office of guardian to the children of a 
deceased brother, the clergy being bound to devote themselves "to 
the altar and sacrifices, prayer and supplication :" the penalty in case 
of disobedience was, that "no offering should be made for him" 

* De Unit. Eccles. t Epist. 55. Ad Cornel. % Lib de Lap. 

I Epist. 1 1. Ad Pleb. Compare Epist. 10. Ad Mart. D Epiat. 34. Ad Cler. 

30 



466 CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

(the transgressor deceased), "nor any sacrifice celebrated for his 
repose." * 

Finally, the doctrine of satisfaction, is by Cyprian, inculcated 
with a fulness and power of language, to which subsequent ages 
could add but little. Perhaps of all that occurs in his writings to 
perplex the biblical Christian, his expressions on this point are 
the most startling : they prove how completely the doctrine of 
justification by faith, in St. Paul's and Luther's sense of that ex- 
pression, had been superseded by another gospel, which is not 
another. Let the reader weigh the following statements, and say 
whether the decisions of Trent do not rather fall short of than 
exceed them. " I wonder that some should be so self-willed as to 
maintain that place for repentance should not be allowed to the 
lapsed, and pardon to the penitent, when it is written, ' Eemember 
whence thou hast fallen, and repent, and do the first works;' 
words which, it is evident, were addressed to one who had fallen, 
and whom the Lord exhorts to rise again, by means of good 
works. For it is written, 'Alms-giving delivers from death' 
(Tob. 4.) ; not, indeed, from that death which the blood of Christ 
hath once for all abolished, and from which the salutary grace of 
baptism, and that of our Eedeemer, hath freed us, but from that which 

is the consequence of subsequent transgression mockery 

of our brethren ! to exhort them to lament, and pour forth tears, to 
groan day and night ; and, for the purpose of washing away their 
sins, to work frequently and abundantly, and after all to refuse 
them the peace of the Church." f Speaking of Fortunatus and 
Felicissimus, who had communicated with the lapsed, before the 
latter had obtained the peace of the Church, he says: — "Not to 
mention their other delinquencies, they hinder the lapsed from 
making supplication to God, who testifies that He is provoked. 
They forbid that Christ should be propitiated by prayers and satis- 
factions. They use every means to prevent the redemption of sin 
by satisfactions and due lamentations, and the cleansing of its 

deadly wounds ' by tears (of repentance) The first grade of 

happiness is never to have sinned ; the second is to acknowledge 
our sins. In the one case, innocence remains unsullied ; in the 
other, there is a remedy for guilt. But these (the schismatics) have, 
through the just anger of God, incurred the loss of both ; so that 

* "Censuerunt (episcopi) ne quis frater excedens ad tutelam vel curam clericum nominaret, 
ac si quis hoc fecisset, non offorretur pro eo, nee sacrificiuin pro dorruitione ejus celebrare- 
tur." He adds, "Neque enim apud altaro Dei meretur nominari in sacerdotuin prece qui 
ab altari sacerdotes et ministros voluit avocare."— Epist. 67. Ad Cler. 

t Epist. 52. Ad Anton. 



PKINCIPLES OF CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTIN. 467 

they possess neither the sanctifying grace of baptism, nor the 
remedial aid of penitence by which guilt is healed." * In another 
epistle, Cyprian mentions that Therapius had been reproved by 
his colleagues, for granting peace to one Victor, before the latter 
"had gone through the full course of penitence (or penance), and 
made satisfaction to God against whom he had sinned." f To the 
lapsed themselves, his exhortation is as follows: — "Do you, be- 
loved, who retain a fear of God and a sense of your delinquency, 
survey with grief your transgressions, acknowledge the crime 
that weighs on your conscience, neither claiming as a right, nor 
despairing of, pardoning merc} r . If God is a loving Father, so is 
He also a judge to be feared. The greater our sins, the greater 
ought to be our repentance. To the healing of a deep wound, a 
long medicinal process is necessary. Let not your penitence be 
less than your sin has been. Thinkest thou that the Lord, whom 
thou hast perfidiously denied . . . can be quickly appeased ? Thou 
must pray and entreat more earnestly, pass the day in grief, and 
the night in watching and tears ; prostrate thyself on the ground, 
roll thyself in dust and filth ; having lost Christ's garment, refuse 
a-11 clothing ; having tasted of the devil's food, choose fasting ; 
press on with good works, by which sins are purged away ; be 
abundant in alms- giving, by which souls are delivered from death. 
What remains of your property, apply to atone for your guilt with- 
out delay, and abundantly let the work go on ; let all your income 
be expended on the healing of your wound, and lay up money at 
interest with the Lord, who is to judge us. So under the Apostles, 
faith flourished ( ! ). If any one thus pray with all his heart, if 
he mourn with due penitential lamentations, if, by the unwearied 
performance of good works, he incline the Lord to pardon his sin 
— such an one may find mercy with Him who proclaims Himself 
to be merciful." \ On this point chiefly it is that the Protestant 
fails to find in Augustin the mind of St. Paul. Admirably as this 
great light of the western church expounds other distinctive doc- 
trines of the Gospel, on the power of Christ's blood, applied by 
faith, to cleanse fully and effectually from the guilt of sin, he is 
comparatively silent; nay, his expressions tend the other way. It 
is not without pain, that we hear him expounding the clause in 
the Lord's Prayer, " Forgive us our trespasses," &c. as follows : — 
"This applies not to those sins which are remitted in the regene- 
ration of baptism, but to those which, through the infirmity of our 
nature, we commit in daily life, for the healing of which the medi- 

* £pi=st. 55. Ad Cornel. f Epist 59. ♦ Lib. De Lap. 



4G8 



CHURCH OF CHRIST. 



cines of alms-giving, of fastings, and of prayers, are to be applied, in 
order that what we say in prayer, we may act out in alms-giving." * 
When once the efficacy of Christ's atonement is thus impaired by 
the admixture of human merit, it is but a short step to the worst 
errors of the Eomish system. If good works are of such avail to 
restore the lapsed, why may not the meritorious actions of those 
who have never fallen be so multiplied as to exceed the demands 
of the divine law, and redound to the benefit of their less fortunate 
brethren ; and if Christ's blood is not sufficient of itself to ensure 
the cleansing of the penitent while living, why should it have this 
effect in the case of those (i. e. all Christians) who pass out of this 
life with the stain of sin not completely effaced ? It can be no 
matter of surprise to us, to find Cyprian pushing his theory to its 
ultimate results, and treading close upon the ground of works of 
supererogation, and of purgatory, if indeed he does not rather pass 
the boundary. "We believe that the merits and works of the 
martyrs are of great avail with the judge ; but not until the day of 
judgment, when, after the dissolution of this world, Christ's people 
shall stand before his tribunal." f " It is one thing to stand over 
for pardon, another to attain to glory ; one thing to be cast into 
prison, not to emerge thence till the uttermost farthing be paid, 
another to receive at once the reward of faith and valour ; one thing 
to be, on account of our sins, purged and cleansed for a lengthened 
period by the torment of fire, another to have purged away all sin 
by suffering ; one thing, lastly, to have our sentence suspended 
until the day of Christ, another to be at once crowned by the Lord."J 
Such, it is believed, is a fair representation of the teaching of 
the most influential church writers of the third and fourth centu- 
ries. That, in its main features, it is identical with that of Trent, 
it is not necessary to point out. The passages speak for them- 
selves. The elements of the Eomish theory are all present: it 
only needs time, and the consolidating influence of system, to 
mould them into an harmonious whole. The truths which we 
may, with great profit to ourselves, gather from a perusal of these 
early Christian writers are, that Komanism is far more ancient 
than the Council of Trent, and that the Protestant can maintain 
his ground against Borne on no other ground save that of genuine 
apostolical tradition, — viz. the writings of the apostles themselves. 

* Cont. Epist. Parm. L. II. s. 20. t Lib. De Lap. % Epist. 52. Ad Anton. 



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